http://web.archive.org/web/20010610035904/www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53~40628,00.html

Arndt lawyer: Police failed to defend her

By Mike McPhee 
Denver Post Staff Writer

Thursday, May 31, 2001 - Attorneys for former Boulder police detective Linda Arndt said in federal court Wednesday that her superiors refused to defend her - or allow her to defend herself - as she became a scapegoat in the media during the probe of the JonBenet Ramsey murder. 

But the attorney for the Police Department said Arndt compromised the investigation by making a substantial number of mistakes. 

"There was an utter failure to protect the evidence," said attorney Ted Halaby, who represents the Boulder Police Department, Chief Mark Beckner and former Chief Tom Koby against Arndt's civil lawsuit. "Given her conduct, there was no way Chief Koby could misrepresent her conduct or allow her to misrepresent herself." 

The trial got under way Wednesday in U.S. District Court after Judge William Downes took a day and a half to find eight jurors who said they were impartial about the highly publicized case. 

Arndt's lawsuit claims the Police Department violated her First Amendment right to freedom of speech by preventing her from defending her reputation. 

Arndt was one of the officers assigned to investigate the December 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenet. 

Arndt's lawyer, Judith Biggs, told the six-woman, two-man jury that Arndt now earns $8 an hour as a tree trimmer. 

Yet before the Ramsey case, Arndt had been named best detective in 1994, best employee of the month in April 1995, and was nominated for best detective in 1996, Biggs said. 

Biggs said Arndt was the sixth cop to arrive at the scene and was assigned to monitor the phone because a ransom note said the kidnapper would call between 8 and 10 a.m. 

But the five other officers left after searching the million-dollar home, leaving Arndt to control eight Ramsey family members, their friends and their minister, Biggs said. 

"Detective Arndt spoke with (Ramsey friend) Fleet White, who told about his daughter missing one day only to be found hiding in a crawl space," Biggs said. "She asked White and John Ramsey to search the house but not to touch anything. 

"They immediately went into the basement. John Ramsey came up carrying the body. He placed it in the hallway, a high-traffic area." 

Biggs said Arndt told Ramsey to call 911, that the case now was a murder. Arndt then carried the body into the living room. Before she could stop him, John Ramsey pulled a throw off a chair and covered the body, Biggs said. 

Despite warnings from Arndt not to touch the body, Patsy Ramsey lay on top of the body, Biggs said. A friend put a sweatshirt over the girl's feet. 

The media, receiving copies of the search warrant affidavit, started blaming Arndt for many mistakes that contaminated the evidence, she said. 

Biggs said one of the most hurtful articles was in Vanity Fair, which compared her to Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles police detective in the O.J. Simpson case.