Prosecutors say they are ready for trial
Judge wants both sides back in courtroom June 3 to schedule pretrial hearings McDonald family calls for probe of Orange County DA, files disciplinary complaints
GOSHEN – Orange County Court Judge Hyun Chin Kim on Monday, after hearing that special prosecutors are ready to go to trial in the Megan McDonald murder case, told defendant Edward Holley’s lawyer to prepare motions and return June 3 to learn her decision.
Holley is facing second-degree-murder charges in the 2003 bludgeoning death of McDonald, a 20-year-old college student and Holley’s former girlfriend. He has declared his innocence.
At a seven-minute status meeting, Holley’s attorney Paul Weber told the judge there were still gaps in the grand jury testimony that need filling in, despite special prosecutor Laura Murphy’s assertions to the contrary. Kim told Weber to work out the issue with Murphy and special prosecutor Julia Cornachio, and that if they could not remedy the situation Weber would need to file a motion challenging the prosecution’s readiness for trial.
Then the judge gave Weber until April 22 to file motions in the case, and Cornachio and Murphy until May 13 to respond to Weber’s motions. She told both sides to return to courtroom 13 on June 3 at 2 p.m. to learn her decisions on motions and to set a schedule for pretrial hearings.
The family of Megan McDonald on Monday filed disciplinary complaints against Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler, four members of his staff and his predecessor Frank Phillips, citing violations of the rules of professional responsibility in the handling of the high-profile 2003 slaying.
Betty Jo McDonald and her daughter, Karen Whalen, filed identical complaints with the Attorney Grievance Committee for New York’s Ninth Judicial District, seeking an investigation.
In addition to the current and former DAs, individual disciplinary complaints were filed against: Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek; ADA Leah Canton; ADA Richard Moran; and Stewart Rosenwasser, special counsel for policy, research and development.
The complaint against Hoovler said the DA had “a clear conflict of interest, refused to recuse himself and/or the District Attorney’s Office from the investigation into
Hoovler
Megan’s homicide and improperly interfered with the New York State Police’s investigation and ultimately, the prosecution of her killer and those who aided and abetted this person.”
After ‘Bad Blood’ report
The charges follow “Bad Blood,” a 10month, multi-part investigation published by the USA Today Network last month. Based on an internal State Police report, it laid bare the investigation into the 2003 slaying of 20-year-old Megan McDonald and exposed a power struggle between police and the DA’s office.
The internal report concluded that DA Hoovler tampered with the McDonald investigation because when he was a defense attorney in 2008, before being elected DA, he sought a plea deal for Andre Thurston, who police believe was in the car when McDonald was killed. Thurston died in 2010.
Edward Holley has been charged with second-degree murder in the case. He has declared his innocence and was due back in Orange County Judge Hyun Chin Kim’s court Monday.
The grievance committee has the power to investigate complaints against lawyers and interpret the rules of professional responsibility and disciplinary rules. Depending on the severity of a case, a lawyer can be censured, reprimanded or have their license suspended or revoked. Or a complaint, which is handled in private, can go nowhere.
A call to Hoovler’s office seeking comment Monday morning was not immediately returned.
The complaint against Hoovler
“Hoovler’s actions were in violation of the New York State Rules of Professional Conduct and potentially the New York State Penal Law,” said the complaints, signed by McDonald and Whalen and filed by their attorney, John Beatty.
The complaints were filed Monday but signed March 15, 2024, the 21st anniversary of the day Megan McDonald’s body was found in a field off Bowser Road in the town of Wallkill.
Among the complaints against Hoovler are:
That upon taking office as DA in January, 2014, Hoovler recused himself from more than 50 cases that are or were pending with his office. He did not recuse himself from the McDonald case, despite having represented Thurston.
Thurston, the complaint said, was “someone whom state police believe watched Megan die violently as Holley struck blow after (sic) against her, shattering her skull and rendering her face unrecognizable to first responders; and who was involved with the disposition of her body and vehicle immediately after her death and help conceal her murder.”
The complaint charged that Hoovler held a “clandestine” meeting with Holley, the main suspect in the homicide. As recorded in a phone call at the Orange County jail, Holley “reported to his wife that Hoovler had told them that Holley was the prime suspect in Megan’s slaying and warned Holley to be wary of recorded phone calls as the police might be listening.”
The DA then offered the prime suspect a plea deal in exchange for information, the complaint said.
The papers filed Monday also recalled a search at Shawangunk Lake Reservoir on March 29, 2023, where state police divers were searching for the murder weapon — “the very murder weapon identified by Thurston to Hoovler in 2008 and which Hoovler had disclosed to ADA Albanese.”
The complaint against Hoovler continued: “Hoovler’s presence at the reservoir this day clearly illustrates the conflict inherent in his conduct; was he present in his capacity as defense attorney for Andre Thurston; or district attorney?”
The complaint mentioned the April 20, 2023, arrest of Holley, without the DA present and without a grand jury’s indictment, which “speaks volumes as to the agency’s apparent distrust and fear of DA Hoovler.”
The complaint against ex-DA Phillips
Phillips, the former DA, was also cited by the McDonald family in a disciplinary complaint.
The complaint against Phillips quoted the “Bad Blood” series and Maryellen Black Albanese, the ADA who oversaw the McDonald investigation from the day her body was found until Albanese’s retirement in late 2019.
Albanese said that after Hoovler was elected, Phillips asked members of his office to draw up a list of cases handled by the incoming DA or his firm, “indicating that cases not disposed of by the end of Phillips’ term would require the appointment of a special prosecutor.”
Albanese said she wrote to Phillips about the McDonald case in the final months of his tenure. The complaint said Phillips violated the rules of professional responsibility by failing to report Hoovler’s conflict of interest.
A call seeking comment Monday from Phillips went unanswered.
The meeting to recuse
The four members of Hoovler’s staff who were cited by complaints on Monday were all present at a meeting on April 25, 2023, when Hoovler finally told the McDonald family he was recusing himself and his office from taking the case forward.
Hoovler had invited so many members of his staff that the meeting was too large to be held in his office. Instead, he told the McDonald family he would not put the case before a grand jury — in the grand jury room.
The only ADA present at that meeting whom the family did not cite for disciplinary complaint was ADA Christopher Kelly, who with Canton, wrote a probable cause memo suggesting that Hoovler put the case before a grand jury.
Downplaying his connection to Thurston
The complaint against Hoovler said the DA “attempted to downplay his relationship with Thurston” at that meeting with the family.
● “Hoovler began his discussion by stating breezily that ‘a guy’ walked into ‘an office’, ‘said some things and left.’ He was not forthcoming and after further questioning, admitted that this ‘guy’ was ‘tangentially’ related to the case.”
● Later in the hourlong meeting, the complaint said: “Hoovler then asserted that the unnamed ‘guy’ (Thurston) was never his client, claiming in the meeting that he was never retained by the ‘guy’ who walked into an office and that Hoovler in fact was never paid.”
The complaint against ADA Borek
The complaint against ADA Christopher Borek described his actions in the April 25, 2023, meeting.
Borek, the complaint said, “not only corrected Hoovler’s version of events, but physically held out his arm (he was sitting next to Hoovler) in an effort to quiet him, and then interrupted and spoke for Hoovler, in a manner reminiscent of a defense attorney speaking for a client.”
The complaint said Borek seemed unsurprised by Hoovler’s statement that he had represented a person with a connection to the homicide, “such that a reasonable person would surmise that he was aware of all facts discussed … prior to their discussion at the meeting and that he was well aware of everything conducted by Hoovler.”
The complaint said Borek violated the rules of professional responsibility by “failing to report the misconduct of Hoovler, failing to recuse himself, and participating in the office’s participation in the investigation.”
As chief ADA, the complaint charged, Borek also failed “to keep an accurate conflict-checking system, the existence of which would have identified this conflict, and which was raised by ADA (Maryellen) Albanese to then DA-Phillips in late 2013.”
The complaint against Stewart Rosenwasser
Stewart Rosenwasser was a partner and owner of Ostrer Rosenwasser LLP, the law firm that Hoovler joined in 2008.
It was in Hoovler’s first weeks at the firm that he began representing Thurston, who was identified in the New York State Police felony complaint against Edward Holley as “Suspect Number 2” and in the grand jury indictment of Holley as “another.”
“It defies logic,” the complaint against Borek said, “to consider that Hoovler, new to a small law firm and dealing with a client possessing significant information in what was then a five-year-old high-profile homicide case in Orange County, would not have discussed the representation with Rosenwasser.”
Hoovler didn’t recuse himself from the McDonald investigation while DA, until April 26, 2023 and, the complaint said, “ADA Rosenwasser apparently never took any action to report Hoovler’s misconduct in refusing to recuse himself and to otherwise be involved in the investigation and prosecution of Megan’s case.”
In June 2019, Hoovler hired Rosenwasser to serve as the DA’s special counsel for policy, research and development.
At the April 25, 2023, meeting with the McDonald family, Rosenwasser did not disclose his private practice’s connection to the case. When asked why he was at the meeting, “ADA Rosenwasser put up both hands defensively and said, in an equally defensive manner, ‘I only found out about this (the conflict) three weeks ago,’” the complaint said.
The complaint said the family does not believe Rosenwasser knew nothing about the conflict until 2023 and that, at any rate, he should have recused himself as soon as he learned of the conflict.
Rosenwasser has been an attorney for 45 years, is a former judge, law firm partner, a referee for the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, and a special referee for the New York State Grievance Committee for the Ninth Judicial District, the same panel where Monday’s complaint was filed.
The complaint said that by failing to recuse himself, Rosenwasser violated the rules of professional responsibility regarding duties to former clients, imputation of conflicts of interest, and special conflicts of interest for former and current officers and employees.
The complaint charged that Rosenwasser violated the rule requiring the reporting of professional misconduct by not reporting Hoovler’s actions. And that Rosenwasser failed to keep an accurate conflict-checking system or, if such a system did exist, “ADA Rosenwasser blatantly ignored or disregarded it.”
The complaints against ADAs Canton, Moran
The McDonald family’s complaints against ADA Leah Canton and ADA Richard Moran said they “interfered with the investigation and prosecution of Megan’s homicide by failing to report Hoovler’s misconduct and other specific acts or omissions.”