LOUISVILLE – Jamarcus Glover, who was the ex-boyfriend of the slain Breonna Taylor, was offered a plea bargain in July if he would admit that she was a part of his “organized crime syndicate”, according to public records.
As first reported by WDRB, Glover, a convicted felon who was the focus of multiple Louisville police raids, was offered the deal on July 13. The deal stated that Glover would acknowledge that he and several “co-defendants”, including Taylor, engaged in organized crime by trafficking large amounts of drugs “into the Louisville community.” Glover turned down the deal from the Jefferson Commonwealth Attorney’s Office.
The deal would have resulted in a possible 10-year prison sentence for charges of criminal syndication, drug trafficking and gun charges. However, the sentencing judge could have released Glover on probation instead of prison time. The crime syndicate primarily sold drugs from abandoned or vacant houses on Elliott Avenue in the Russell community. Taylor, who was shot at least eight times in her apartment after the Louisville Metro Police Department executed a no-knock residential search, lived 10 miles away in an apartment off Springfield Drive.
Attorney Sam Aguiar, who is currently representing Taylor’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit, said that the plea deal is just another transparent attempt to justify their actions and smear Taylor’s name.
“The fact that they would try to even represent that she was a co-defendant in a criminal case more than a month after she died is absolutely disgusting,” Aguiar said in the article.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine claimed that the plea deal was just a draft and criticized Aguiar for posting a screenshot of the deal on Facebook.
“When I was advised of the discussions, out of respect for Ms. Taylor, I directed that Ms. Breonna Taylor’s name be removed. The final plea sheet provided to Mr. Glover’s counsel is attached and clearly does not include Ms. Taylor as a co-defendant,” he said.
Defense attorney Scott Barton, who is representing Glover, said that the most recent offers from prosecutors have not included Taylor’s name, but that there was mention of her in an earlier deal.
Louisville defense attorney Ted Shouse, who formerly worked for the Kentucky Innocence Project, said from the optics of it, the strategy is to paint Taylor as guilty “because she is destroying them. And they want Jamarcus Glover to do it for them because their efforts have failed. So they offer him a bribe, basically. All you have to do is smear her.”
According to Wine’s press release, the final version of the plea deal had Glover admitting that the co-defendants used Taylor’s apartment to store “proceeds from the trafficking operation.” The plea agreement also called for Glover to acknowledge that the person living at Taylor’s apartment was “handling all his money.” Glover, through multiple jail cell calls and an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, has maintained that Taylor was innocent and had no involvement in any drug operation.
Ben Crump, a nationally renowned attorney, and his co-counsels of Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker released the following statement on prosecutors trying to give Glove a plea deal:
“We are outraged that prosecutors would attempt to justify Breonna Taylor’s death by leaning on Jamarcus Glover to falsely state – after her death – that she was part of an organized crime syndicate. This is why the Black community has no trust in America’s justice system. It’s enormously ironic that the accused drug dealer here acted with honor, refusing to falsely discredit Bre after her death – even when offered the temptation of no prison time for lying, while prosecutors and police acted in the most egregiously dishonest and dishonorable way possible. The police killed Bre once, and now they’re trying to kill her again by killing her reputation and her good name. Disgusting behavior by those who are supposed to be the protectors of justice.”
