Man acquitted in Lady’s Island shootout alleges police, prosecutors tried to frame him
A St. Helena Island man acquitted of murder in February has filed a lawsuit accusing police and prosecutors of conspiring to frame him in a 2019 Lady’s Island gas station shooting, despite knowing there was a lack of evidence.
A jury found Jeffrey Redd, 27, of St. Helena, not guilty of murder, attempted murder, and possession of a weapon in commission of a violent crime after a four-day trial and six hours of deliberation in the late evening of Feb. 17.
Redd filed suit against the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office last month, alleging the agencies used false and misleading information to obtain warrants to arrest him, to keep him jailed for nearly two years, and to prosecute him.
Spokespeople for the Sheriff’s Office and the Solicitor’s Office both declined to comment.
On Monday, Robert Achurch, a Beaufort lawyer representing the Sheriff’s Office, denied all the allegations in a filing and said any representations made by police “were made in the reasonable good faith based on the facts available.”
Redd’s attorney, Ashley Cornwell of Mount Pleasant, represented him in the murder trial and filed the lawsuit on his behalf.
“As an army veteran, Mr. Redd was willing to sacrifice his own life to protect the rights and freedom of this country only to come back home and be deprived of those very same rights and freedom for almost 2 years when he was wrongfully accused, arrested and prosecuted for crimes he did not commit,” Cornwell wrote in a statement Wednesday.
The Sheriff’s Office and Solicitor’s Office accused Redd of targeting a black Camry and killing 20-year-old Clarence Mitchell III in a packed Circle K gas station filled with cars leaving a Beaufort High School graduation on June 3, 2019. The agencies charged two other men in the alleged murder, whose charges were dropped after Redd’s acquittal.
The case proved challenging for prosecutors, as they relied on video evidence that didn’t explicitly show Redd firing a gun or even at the gas station and on witnesses who were involved in the incident and resistant to prosecutors’ inquiries.
During the trial, prosecutor Mary Jones with the Solicitor’s Office tried to make the case to jurors that Redd noticed the car of an enemy and started recklessly shooting on that June night.
“When Jeffrey Redd sees a car full of people he doesn’t like, he sprays bullet after bullet after bullet into a packed gas station parking lot,” Jones said in her opening arguments.
Jones said forensic evidence — like gunshot residue and bullets from the scene found in his car — in addition to behavior displayed online on Facebook in the days after the shooting and early police interviews identifying Redd all pointed to Redd as the gas station shooter.
Authorities recovered 70 bullets after the shooting. It was one of the largest crime scenes ever investigated by the Sheriff’s Office, according to prosecutors. The chaotic shootout led to firing from both sides of the shooting.
‘Coerced’ information?
Redd’s lawsuit accuses police of coercing a witness to identify Redd as the shooter. It also blames the Solicitor’s Office for assisting the Sheriff’s Office to present the witness’ identification to a judge for warrants and to use that information to keep Redd in jail.
One of the victims in the Camry, Kashaun “K.J.” Holmes, was visited by Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office investigators in the hospital after the shooting. Assistant Solicitor Jones said during the trial Holmes was “riddled with bullet holes” at the time.
Holmes, who later said he was under heavy pain medication, initially told police he didn’t know who was shooting that night and the truck he saw the bullets come from was a newer white GMC Yukon, according to Redd’s lawsuit documents.
“After Holmes gave his first statement, (the Sheriff’s Office) went back to the hospital a few hours later and coerced Holmes into falsely identifying (Redd) as one of the shooters that night in order to get a search warrant,” the lawsuit alleges.
In its legal response Monday, the Sheriff’s Office flatly denied the allegation.
Holmes’ hospital bed identification of Redd became justification to obtain several warrants, the lawsuit says.
The Sheriff’s Office obtained a warrant to search Redd’s mother’s white SUV, a Chevrolet Tahoe. In March 2020, another police investigator obtained a warrant to search a Facebook account they believed was Redd’s and cited in the request to the judge that Redd was identified as the shooter in the white SUV, the lawsuit said.
Two other participants in the shooting denied seeing Redd in interviews with the Sheriff’s Office and Solicitor’s Office, according to the lawsuit.
‘No one could positively identify’
By April 2020, the Sheriff’s Office, on advice from the Solicitor’s Office, was ready to charge Redd with murder, the lawsuit states.
Redd was charged and arrested on April 16, 2020. Solicitor Duffie Stone’s office presented the allegations to a grand jury and returned indictments against Redd.
Five days after Redd’s arrest, however, Investigator Todd Duncan with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office submitted a report to Stone’s office stating that police had not been able to solidly identify Redd as the shooter.
It is “known from the video and evidence at the scene, the rifle was shot from the rear passenger quarter panel of the Tahoe. Investigators have spent countless hours tracking down independent witnesses and conducting interviews. However, no one could positively identify (Redd) as the shooter,” Duncan wrote in the report following Redd’s arrest and cited in the lawsuit.
Redd’s lawsuit said he requested bond several times to be released from jail. But every motion was denied because Assistant Solicitor Jones relied on the faulty evidence, the lawsuit alleges, to keep him there.
Holmes, the victim in the car, also contacted the Solicitor’s Office to tell them that the identification of Redd as the shooter was false and was gathered while he was under heavy pain medication, the lawsuit alleges.
During the trial, Holmes was subpoenaed to testify and was resistant to questions.
Jones later told the jury this reversal was due to a fear of being labeled a “snitch” and facing repercussions.
“A ‘snitch’ is not going to point the finger at a man he’s known his entire life and say that man tried to kill me,” Jones said.
The jury would end up acquitting Redd hours after hearing arguments from Jones and Cornwell.
Redd’s lawsuit said he is entitled to damages after the prosecution efforts from the Solicitor’s Office and Sheriff’s Office police work left him in jail for nearly two years, where he contracted COVID-19 while incarcerated and was unable to work or see much of his family.
The Solicitor’s Office has been served with the lawsuit but has not yet filed a response.
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 11:33 AM.
