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Ramsey detective's defamation case begins

Arndt's lawyers say she was used as scapegoat in JonBenet investigation

By Owen S. Good, News Staff Writer

The former Boulder detective present when JonBenet Ramsey's body was discovered now trims trees for $8 an hour, her attorneys said, because her bosses scapegoated her as the No. 1 bungler in a flawed investigation. 

Lawyers seated a six-woman, two-man jury and made opening statements Wednesday in Linda Arndt's civil defamation case in federal court. 

Arndt's lawyers said gag orders from former Boulder police chief Tom Koby and current chief Mark Beckner proved devastating to the detective's reputation. 

When media reports criticized her work on the case, her lawyers said, she was unable to defend herself. Her credibility plunged to the point where she can no longer hold investigative jobs, they said. 

"She will never be a cop again," attorney Judith Biggs told the jury. 

Police attorney Theodore Halaby made it clear that he will focus on Arndt's alleged botching of the Ramsey investigation. 

"Her mistakes . . . may ultimately prove to be the barrier to a successful prosecution of the JonBenet Ramsey murder," he said. 

"There will be an amount of dirty laundry aired that will not be a help to the ongoing Ramsey investigation," Halaby said. 

Arndt was removed from the case after 4 months and left the Boulder force in 1999, unable to function as a sexual assault investigator, Biggs said. 

Victims and witnesses did not trust her because of her destroyed reputation, Biggs said, and defense attorneys in unrelated cases sought to use it against Arndt at trial. 

Koby, and later Beckner, defended cops who were adept at "office politics," Biggs said, but not Arndt. The chiefs would not rebut a number of claims that evidence was contaminated on her watch and police fundamentals were not followed. 

"Since there was no answer to these stories, they got repeated over and over until people identified her as the bungler," Biggs said. 

Halaby said her superiors did not defend Arndt because they would not misrepresent what really happened, nor would they let her do the same. The gag orders also were necessary to preserve an open case's integrity, he said. 

"Police work requires a certain amount of professional thick skin," Halaby said. 

Arndt is basing her suit on a claim that her First Amendment rights to free speech, in this case, to talk to the press, were violated by her superiors. She is seeking unspecified damages. 

Halaby warned the jury that a finding that Arndt's free speech rights prevail over the integrity of the case "would have a pervasive effect on law enforcement nationwide." 




Contact Owen S. Good at (303) 442-8729 or goodo@RockyMountainNews.com. 

May 31, 2001