Embattled Illinois State Police Investigator Rick White is shown here walking into a courtroom for a hearing in which an individual took out an Order of Protection for stalking and harrassment. In the instant case
WHITE CO.— The high-profile trial of a suspended White County jailer has ended in a mistrial…and marks yet another mistrial in which Illinois State Police investigator Rick White and his questionable investigative “skills” are again called into question.
Sources close to the case said jurors deliberated for nearly 12 hours before the judge in the case called a mistrial in the late hours of Friday, April 11.
Phillip Lowery, 38, was charged with one count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse of a four-year-old victim, who is now 7 years old.
Lowery took the stand in his own defense and jurors heard him testify that his wife had been a babysitter for the four year old for more than two years, but that he was never alone with the little girl.
“It was Lowery’s word against the word of a seven-year-old who testified about abuse that allegedly took place when she was three or four,” said the source. “The jury just heard tough facts, there was no confession or anything like that.
In the end the jury was split 6-6 by the time they informed the judge they were hung.
The White connection
Those who have followed the case and cases like it in the region were not as surprised as some to find out that embattled Illinois State Police Investigator Rick White leaked early on, months before the trial and some say before charges were even filed, that the case came about because in June of 2012 the mother of the four-year-old was scrolling through some photographs on her cell phone and pointed out a picture of Lowery to her daughter, information that ultimately came out at trial.
White allegedly leaked the information to not only a radio media contact in Wayne County but to several individuals in the general public.
White went on to reveal that when the mother pointed the picture of Lowery out to her daughter the little girl said that Lowery had made her fondle him.
Sued in federal court for same
There was no response as of presstime as to whether or not the ISP Department of Internal Investigations are looking into White for leaking information during an active investigation and before charges were filed/the case made it into a courtroom.
White is currently embroiled in a federal lawsuit in which he is accused of leaking information, speaking openly in public about a criminal sex case investigation in Wayne County, this one, too, dating back to 2010.
The alleged “victim” in that case retracted all statements, so there were never any charges filed in that case, although White had already told numerous individuals that he “knew the suspect was guilty.”
Withholding evidence/stalking
In a 2011 case that also ended in mistrial in February 2013, White again is said to have leaked information before charges were filed, right through to the jury trial.
In the wake of the mistrial of Dr. Jogendra Chhabra of Marion, who at the time was operating a clinic in Norris City, White has been found to have withheld exculpatory evidence or evidence that would have proven the doctor’s innocence.
Since the mistrial of Chhabra, White has personally driven the alleged victim to the state board to assure the doctor’s medical license was suspended, this occurring late last summer/early fall, after White County State’s Attorney Denton Aud declined to re-file charges against Chhabra, who was accused of sexual misconduct with one of his patients. Since the mistrial, volumes of evidence has surfaced that the entire thing was a set-up from the outset, and that no sexual misconduct on Chhabra’s part occurred at all.
Said to have been enraged over the mistrial and Aud’s subsequent refusal to refile, White has even been caught recently tailgating the doctor and his wife for several blocks in the city of Fairfield, this occurring in 2013.
Accused of faking confessions
White refuses to use any recording device and has been accused on multiple occasions, even when requested by suspects, of testifying that he received a confession from suspect who claim nothing of the sort ever took place.
“Why would an investigator not want to record a confession?” asked a decorated former ISP homicide investigator. “Because he’s lying, that’s why.”
There was no confession in Lowery’s case, although White did conduct an interview with Lowery…which wasn’t recorded, as is the usual case with White, and which tends to prompt questions about the veracity of the “interviews” with suspects when White goes to testify as to what was said in the interview…mainly because White lies, and has, as in the Chhabra case, been known to lie in order to obtain a conviction.
During the trial, Lowery’s attorney, Alan Downen of McLeansboro, point-blank accused White of having “made up his mind that (the little girl) was telling the truth and Lowery was lying,” and that White was “pursuing a conviction instead of conducting an impartial investigation to uncover the truth.”
Bad habits for tough cases
Downen also called into question White’s habit of not recording interviews; White shot back that he “wasn’t required to record” them by ISP. ISP only requires recordings in the case of interviews regarding murders. However, given the deplorable track record White continues to make for himself, it would surprise very few if ISP suddenly began mandating recorded interviews in ALL cases…especially sex cases, which, inexplicably, White continues to be assigned.
The devastating part of White’s inability to provide good form in his approach is two-fold: On one hand, if there was NOT an act of sex assault or abuse perpetrated, and White’s underhanded tactics result in a conviction, an innocent person is sent to prison and is marked for life in the state of Illinois as a sex offender.
On the other hand, if lack of good interviewing skills causes a case to be declared a mistrial or results in the acquittal of a real offender, then that person is out and able to re-offend, and a victim who is struggling with what happened to him or her must live with the fact that bad investigation practices caused the perp to be let go.
So serious has the situation with White’s flippant attitude toward good police work gotten, certain prosecutors in the southern part of Illinois have begun stating their intent to ask that if ISP is involved in any criminal investigation, White NOT be made part of that investigation.
Bizarre, illegal
Whether or not it was White’s bizarre, not to mention illegal, behavior leading up to the Lowery trial that added to the hung jury or not remains to be seen.
“We do not know if Rick White’s actions had anything to do with the mistrial,” said the source. “But we will be interviewing jurors in the coming days in an attempt to gain some insight into their deliberations.”
It is unclear if Lowery will return to duty as a corrections officer.
On a related note, the case of Melissa Kittinger, also an employee at the White County jail (communications aka dispatch), who was charged in early March with two instances of jury tampering of Lowery’s potential jury pool, was set for a first appearance in her case on April 15.
Kittinger, who is a relative of Lowery’s, was accused of making unlawful contact with two potential jurors in Lowery’s case, Bill Ramo and Amy Barnett (Ramo through a third party, his wife; Barnett directly) when Lowery’s case was set to go to jury in February, thus delaying the case.
It’s unknown whether or not Rick White is involved in any aspect of Kittinger’s case, but his name doesn’t appear on any of her court documents.
Neighboring Hamilton County prosecutor Justin Hood has been brought in to handle Kittinger’s case, since, like Lowery’s, Denton Aud has a conflict prosecuting county employees.
Edwards County prosecutor Mike Valentine handled the case against Lowery for Aud.