Charlotte police officer convicted, sentenced for fabricating DWI evidence

CHARLOTTE – A Mecklenburg County District Court judge Monday morning convicted a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer of criminal contempt after hearing from the officer and his attorney.

The officer, Barry Grimes, told Judge Sean P. Smith that on April 15 in District Court, he had mistakenly testified that a driver he had stopped failed two field-sobriety tests.

But a dashboard camera video of the defendant’s arrest, introduced by Charlotte attorney Allen Brotherton at the April 15 hearing, showed that neither test had been performed.

Grimes testified that he had worked the midnight shift the night before giving the testimony and failed to prepare adequately for the driving-while-impaired case. He also testified that he had not taken any notes at the time he arrested the driver and that on the morning he testified, he was scheduled to appear in 13 other cases, including nine driving-while-impaired cases.

But Smith, who was also the judge in the driving-while-impaired hearing, didn’t buy Grimes’ story.

He noted that Grimes gave his April 15 testimony confidently and without hesitation. He also said Grimes was given the opportunity to correct his testimony at the time of the driving-while-impaired hearing and declined to do so.

“You used evidence against the defendant to convict her of a crime that a video showed did not exist,” Smith told Grimes. “You arrested the defendant based on nonexistent evidence.”

Grimes was the state’s only witness in the April 15 driving while impaired hearing.

Smith said that based on Grimes’ testimony at that hearing, he was well on his way to convicting the defendant Grimes had arrested. Instead, after seeing the video that conflicted with Grimes’ testimony, Smith dismissed the charges against the defendant and set a hearing for Grimes to show why he should not be found in criminal contempt of court.

Smith said Grimes’ cavalier disregard for the defendant’s rights shocked him as a lawyer, as a judge and as a citizen.

“I cannot condone conduct that disregards the true facts in a case and creates new ones,” Smith said. “I have weighed your liberty with far more deliberation than you afforded the defendant.”

Smith sentenced Grimes to the maximum penalty allowed under the law: a 30-day active prison sentence and a fine of $500. An active sentence means Grimes will be required to serve the full prison term. Many times judges suspend all or some portions of prison terms in contempt cases.

Smith remanded Grimes to the custody of the sheriff, but just before Grimes was placed in handcuffs, his lawyer, Joe Ledford of Charlotte, moved that Grimes be released on his own recognizance.

Smith agreed, and Grimes left the courtroom. He is free pending further proceedings in the case.

Those proceedings would include an appeal Ledford noted on Grimes’ behalf to Superior Court. Prosecutor Bruce Lillie intervened to ask that Smith include a provision in his order stating that the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office would prosecute Grimes in the Superior Court case, barring the existence of a conflict.

“I don’t foresee that there will be a conflict now,” Lillie said.

Smith agreed to appoint and designate the district attorney’s office to present the state’s case in Superior Court.