LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A former Louisville police detective will spend one year in prison after admitting Monday his lies and improper conduct helped cause two people to be convicted for slayings they didn't commit.
"Those facts are true," Mark Handy said after Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens read him the allegations behind charges of perjury and tampering with physical evidence.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Handy will not be able to ask for probation for his one-year prison sentence.
He declined to speak to the victims, including Edwin Chandler, who spent nearly a decade for a murder he didn't commit after Handy lied to a jury in his 1995 murder trial.
"I'm not happy with our justice system," Chandler said in a press conference after the hearing, telling supporters and members of the media that one year in prison was not enough for what Handy did.
Handy also acknowledged he tampered with physical evidence by erasing an interview in a separate case.
Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens approved the plea agreement.
Last August, Stevens rejected a plea deal that would have included no prison time for Handy.
While he was facing up to five years in prison, the plea deal agreed to by the defense and prosecution would instead have put Handy on probation.
Stevens rejected that deal, saying the penalty for Handy would not be equal to the injustice received by Chandler. Handy and his attorneys withdrew the guilty plea.
During the hearing, Stevens said Chandler supported the new plea deal.
The proposed deal reinstates the tampering with physical evidence charge in the manslaughter convictions against Keith West.
Handy admits that he taped over the recording of a witness statement in the West case, according to the plea agreement.
Previously, Stevens refused to overturn West's two 1997 manslaughter convictions, but former Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned West in 2019.
West spent about seven years behind bars for the shooting deaths of two men he said he killed in self-defense when they allegedly tried to kidnap and rape him.
In the Chandler case, Handy admits he testified untruthfully at trial as to something he said Chandler told him about the case, something only the murderer would have known.
"This testimony … led to the wrongful conviction of Edwin Chandler," according to the plea agreement.
Handy did not say anything during his hearing on Monday. Before Stevens ruled in August, Handy apologized for his actions and to Chandler.
"I know words are not worth much," Handy said. "From the day I learned that Mr. Chandler had been wrongfully convicted I've been sick, ill. I can only apologize to him with all my heart and hope he can find some type of forgiveness."
He said he lives his "life now trying to make amends. I hope he can forgive me some day."
After the hearing, Chandler thanked people who for years worked on clearing his conviction.
"It's been a very, very long time," Chandler said in a press conference. "This has been a difficult road to travel."
Young and Butler both had argued that Handy should receive probation instead of prison time.
Young previously told Stevens that Handy would be a convicted felon and never work in law enforcement again. He also said the Chandler case, which is decades old, would be tough to take to trial given how much time has passed.
Chandler spent nine years in prison for the murder of Brenda Whitfield, which a court later found he did not commit. He was exonerated in 2012. Metro Government went on to pay him $8.5 million as a result of a wrongful conviction lawsuit.
"There is no winners in this at all," Chandler said. "I'm still upset at the criminal justice system."
West has a pending lawsuit filed against Louisville police, the city and several officers.
Four people with a conviction involving Handy have been exonerated. Handy's investigations are the focus of multiple wrongful imprisonment lawsuits.
He played a central role in the investigation of two "satanic ritual" killings in Meade County. Jeffrey Clark and Keith Hardin were convicted for the 1995 murder of Rhonda Sue Warford. But then, in 2016, a judge threw out the conviction and the men were released
Clark and Hardin have since filed a federal lawsuit and accuse Handy of working with former Meade County Sheriff Joseph Greer, and others, to create a "false theory" that Clark and Hardin murdered Warford in a Satanic ritual killing.
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