Monday, June 30, 2008

Teresa Isaac stepped in it worse than Newberry

In sworn testimony, former Lexington Mayor Teresa Isaac contradicted herself on a key element of her story that has allowed her to claim confidently that there was nothing to the federal investigation of inmate abuse allegations at the Fayette County Detention Center.

She told the Lexington Herald Leader in a September 29, 2006 story:
"We're absolutely convinced that the investigation will show there's no violations" and "I've reviewed the same records they've reviewed, there's absolutely nothing in there that would amount to a civil rights violation and I've been a civil rights attorney for 25 years so I think I would know."


Under oath, she said that her confidence came from an internal investigation she requested. The more she talked, though, the more her carefully crafted picture melted into something else altogether.

"I had just completed an internal review and I told (former US Attorney Amul Thapar) that," she said. "We had completed an internal review and found nothing."


Thapar led the federal investigation into the Lexington jail. Isaac said he called her the week before the FBI raid.

In her deposition, Isaac admits that the "internal review" was really just an oral report from two former employees. But this is the best part:

Attorney Bill Jacobs: From the time the FBI took the documents ---
Isaac: Before. Before. We did an internal review before the FBI ever came, before Amul ever called me.

Jacobs: Did you do an internal review between the time Mr. Thapar called you and said he was coming to see you and they took the documents?
Isaac: No. We had completed it already before Mr. Thapar even called me.

Jacobs: You completed it 12 months before?
Isaac: Yes.


In other words, Isaac had no idea what the federal authorities were looking at, and what federal grand jury members saw that led them to indict five people for their actions at the jail. What could possibly account for her public pronouncements of innocence?