Cop behind Breonna Taylor warrant pleads guilty to federal charge
One of the Louisville, Ky., cops who concocted a warrant to raid Breonna Taylor’s apartment pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge on Tuesday.
Kelly Goodlett, 35, admitted to falsifying information in the warrant along with fellow officer Joshua Jaynes and then meeting with Jaynes to cover up their lies.
Goodlett faces up to five years in prison. Her sentencing date was scheduled for Nov. 22, but Federal Judge Rebecca Jennings Grady said it could be delayed.
Breonna Taylor was killed during a police raid on her home.
The Justice Department charged four current and former Louisville cops tied to the fatal shooting of Taylor, 26, in March 2020. Jaynes, Sgt. Kyle Meany and ex-Detective Brett Hankison were indicted and pleaded not guilty.
Goodlett resigned a day after the charges were announced and had been expected to plead guilty at Tuesday’s hearing.
The feds said that when Goodlett and Jaynes were applying for the warrant, they lied about Taylor receiving packages for her ex-boyfriend, a convicted felon. Investigators said that when the two cops were exposed, they met in a parking garage to plot a coverup.
Hankison, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly were the three officers who opened fire on the night of March 13, 2020. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has argued that the officers feared for their lives because Taylor’s new boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a single bullet when they entered the apartment.
Walker has said he didn’t know they were police officers. The cops returned a hail of gunfire that killed Taylor.
Kenneth Walker (right) holds his girlfriend Breonna Taylor.
Cosgrove and Mattingly’s shots hit Taylor. Hankison’s shots missed, and though he faced state charges for wanton endangerment, he was acquitted. No one has served any jail time in the case. Goodlett was released until her sentencing hearing.
Jaynes and Hankison were no longer Louisville cops when the charges were announced. The department fired Meany last week.
“The federal government had the guts to do what Daniel Cameron did not,” said Lonita Baker, one of the Taylor family’s attorneys, after the charges were announced. “The malfeasance that the Kentucky attorney general’s office showed in this case shows that his political career needs to end now.”
The Justice Department is also conducting a larger “pattern and practice” investigation of the Louisville Metro Police Department.
With News Wire Services
