LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The U.S. Department of Justice has filed new charges against two former Louisville police officers already facing federal crimes in connection with the fatal raid on Breonna Taylor's home in 2020.

The so-called “superseding” indictments come a little more than a month after a judge's dismissal of the most serious charges against former Louisville Metro Police Detectives Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Simpson's Aug. 22 ruling, in essence, found that the initial gunshot Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at police was the "legal cause of her death" — not an improper warrant that authorized the raid.

Jaynes and Meany are accused of providing and lying about false information in a search warrant used by police to burst into Taylor's house, resulting in her death.

In the new indictments, the prosecutors amended the original indictments, adding additional allegations in hopes of getting around the judge's ruling. 

Jaynes and Meany will have to be arraigned again, with a scheduled court date on Oct. 18. Both are currently released on bond.

Attorney Thomas Clay, who represents Jaynes, said the new indictment raises “legal issues we need to address further. We need additional time to research the issues.”

An attorney for Meany declined to comment.

The new indictment on Tuesday includes a focus on key information Jaynes and Meany withheld from other officers during the planning and execution of the raid, putting both officers and anyone in Taylor's home in danger. 

In addition, the two presented false information in a search warrant affidavit, presented to Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw, including that a postal inspector verified that drug suspect Jamarcus Glover, who had dated Taylor, was using Taylor's home to receive parcels.

In fact, Tony Gooden, a U.S. postal inspector in Louisville, told WDRB News in May 2020 that Louisville police didn't confer with his office. He said a different law enforcement agency asked his office in January 2020 to investigate whether any potentially suspicious mail was going to the unit. The local office concluded that there wasn't.

And Jaynes swore that he had observed Glover make “frequent trips” to Taylor’s home, according to the new indictment. But, in fact, Jaynes and Meany had only seen Glover at the home one time, months before the March 13, 2020, raid, prosecutors allege.

“If the judge had been aware that key statements in the affidavit were false and misleading, she would not have approved the warrant for Taylor’s home and there would not have been a search at Taylor’s home,” according to the new indictment.

Meany also had knowledge that Taylor's boyfriend legally owned a gun and stayed with her, but did not notify police sent to execute the warrant on her home. None of this information was included in the search warrant application, according to the indictments. 

Simpson had dismissed two felony charges against both men that carried a maximum penalty of life in prison. The charges involved using a dangerous weapon to deprive Taylor of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search.

In his ruling, Simpson said the "tragedy of Breonna Taylor's death and the gravity of her family's grief are not lost on the court."

However, in this case, "the alleged facts do not fit the felony offenses as written."

Jaynes was still facing two felony counts alleging a cover-up after Taylor's death and could be sentenced to a total of 40 years. Meany was facing one charge of lying to the FBI and a maximum of five years in prison.

Prosecutors have appealed the ruling. It is unclear how the new indictment will affect the appeal. 

Taylor was killed when Walker fired a shot after police burst in early in the morning as part of a series of searches revolving around a drug dealer who had once dated Taylor. Walker has said he thought the couple were being robbed. Police fired 32 shots in response, killing Taylor.

Police were looking for money or drugs involving Jamarcus Glover, who was at the center of a narcotics probe by Louisville police. The warrant for Taylor's home was executed around the same time that police served other warrants on suspected drug houses in the city's west end — some 10 miles away.

No drugs or money were found in the 26-year-old's home.

In the new indictment, Jaynes and Meany are accused of not telling SWAT about the Taylor raid as SWAT officers were executing warrants at other houses simultaneously.

The two former officers are accused of knowing police would brandish weapons during the raid of Taylor's home "and it was more likely the officers would surprise the unsuspecting occupants who were sleeping inside." 

Jaynes and Meany "hid" their plans from SWAT to execute the warrant on Taylor's home during planning of the raids, according to the indictment.

And despite a warning from SWAT that it was dangerous to execute several simultaneous raids, Jaynes and Meany continues planning the Taylor raid, the indictment says. 

Jaynes, Meany and Brett Hankison faced charges that include civil rights offenses, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction.

Another former officer, Kelly Goodlett, has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy for knowingly including false information in the search warrant affidavit used to raid Taylor's home and then conspiring with Jaynes to cover it up.

Prosecutors said Goodlett and Jaynes knew false information was in the search warrant affidavit when it was presented to a judge and that other information was stale.

Jaynes' indictment claims that in April or May 2020 he tried to get an LMPD officer identified as "J.M." to say that he had previously told Jaynes that Glover had been receiving packages at Taylor's home. However, "J.M." had told Jaynes in January of that year that he had no information to support that, according to the indictment.

The indictment says Jaynes and Goodlett provided a "false Investigative Letter" to criminal investigators around May 1, 2020.

Jaynes later texted Goodlett that a criminal investigator wanted to meet with him after Gooden's account refuting the information in the warrant affidavit was reported, according to the indictment.

The indictment says Jaynes and Goodlett met the night of May 17, 2020 in Jaynes' garage, where Jaynes allegedly told Goodlett "that they needed to get on the same page because they could both go down for putting false information in the Springfield Drive warrant affidavit."

Goodlett has pleaded guilty and is expected to work with prosecutors and possibly testify against other officers. She will not be sentenced until the trials of the other three officers have concluded.

The former detectives who fired the shots that struck Taylor — John Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove — were not charged because they didn't know about the false information in the search warrant.

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