Witness deals released in Crumbley trials
2 employees agreed to testify with assurances
DETROIT – Defense attorneys made a key point in the recent trials of Jennifer and James Crumbley for charges related to their son’s 2021 massacre at Oxford High School in Michigan: Two school employees who saw the student’s disturbing drawing that morning let him stay in school.
Now, the Oakland County prosecutor’s office has released confidential agreements it brokered more than two years ago with those two employees, who were given assurances that their comments to investigators would not be used against them.
Counselor Shawn Hopkins and former dean of students Nicholas Ejak made the controversial decision despite receiving multiple alerts about his behavior in the 24 hours prior. They never searched his backpack, which contained the murder weapon, or insisted that his parents take him home, despite summoning the parents over a troubling drawing Ethan Crumbley had made of a gun, a human body bleeding, and the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
The massacre left four students dead and seven other people injured. Hopkins and Ejak wound up testifying against both parents at their involuntary manslaughter trials, which ended in convictions. Prosecutors argued at both trials that the Crumbleys ignored a deeply troubled son, and instead of getting him help, they bought him a gun.
The night the final Crumbley family member was convicted, Prosecutor Karen McDonald stood with parents who repeated their calls for school accountability. “We want to hold everyone accountable,” McDonald said, adding, “I’ve made a commitment to these parents, and I’m going to keep it.”
The next day, the Oakland County prosecutor’s office issued a statement saying no criminal charges would be filed against any school employees because there was no evidence to support doing so.
The defense did not learn until this week that Hopkins and Ejak had received what’s known in legal circles as “proffer agreements,” which protect individuals who are meeting with investigators from having their words used against them.
The defense learned of those agreements after the Free Press disclosed them in an exclusive story that offered a closer look at how the prosecution built its historic case against the Crumbleys, and sought to explain why school officials had not been criminally charged despite the outcry from the victims’ parents, who have long called for accountability by the school and its employees.
Prosecutor: No one got ‘immunity’
The Oakland County prosecutor’s office adamantly denies making any promises to the school officials that they wouldn’t be charged in exchange for their testimony, and says the proffer agreements state just that.
The agreements contain a specific section that begins “No promises of favorable consideration,” continuing, “Your client is not entitled to any consideration regarding pending or possible charges or sentence recommendations by the government just because your client participates in a proffer session.”
In legal circles, proffer is an offer of evidence in support of an argument − in other words, the information the school employees were sharing with investigators during their interviews.
On Saturday, in another statement to the Free Press, the prosecutor’s office maintained that McDonald “has said from the very beginning that she has reviewed all available evidence and has not seen any evidence that would support criminal charges for anyone at the school or district.”
The office reiterated these points in yet another statement Tuesday, and elaborated on the proffer letters. On Wednesday, the office released the agreements, saying it was doing so “given the ongoing speculation surrounding the proffer agreements, and in the interest of transparency,”
The office emphasized, “No one got immunity.”
“Those agreements were drafted by the prosecutor’s office, and they made crystal clear to Hopkins, Ejak and their attorneys … that there was never an implicit or explicit promise of immunity, leniency or favoritism of any kind,” the statement reads. “As you will see, these letters spell that out. Because there were no promises of any kind, those letters were not required to be disclosed.”
Defense experts disagree with the last point. They say the U.S. Supreme Court has issued two key rulings that require that the prosecution disclose to the defense both exculpatory evidence and any information that could challenge the credibility of a witness − in this case, the school officials.
Shannon Smith, who represented Jennifer Crumbley, said she “absolutely” should have been provided with the proffer agreements, which would have helped her challenge the credibility of the school witnesses at trial.
Mariell Lehman, who is representing James Crumbley, declined to comment. So did attorneys for Ejak and Hopkins.
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to all his crimes and is serving life without the possibility of parole. James and Jennifer Crumbley are scheduled to be sentenced April 9, with each facing up to 15 years in prison.
The prosecutor’s office said Wednesday that it plans to use threats James Crumbley allegedly made toward McDonald in jail phone calls against him at sentencing. The alleged threats came up in the middle of Crumbley’s trial and cost him his communications pending the outcome of his case.
“Those threats were directly addressed to the prosecutor by name, telling her what was going to happen to her when he is released,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday. “Those threats are serious, and they also reflect a lack of remorse and a continued refusal to take accountability.”