Copyright © 2023 Katherine Black All Rights Reserved
The Corruption of Assistant Attorney General Kaelen Brodie
UPDATE, March 20, 2023: Assistant Attorney General Kaelen Brodie is under investigation for fabricating evidence and committing perjury.
If DCYF licensor Laurel Hightower’s criminal misconduct wasn’t enough of a fight for applicant Kasey, he also had to battle the corruption of Kaelen Brodie, Washington state’s assistant attorney general.
After the first day of a two-day appeal hearing in January 2022, Brodie was likely losing to Kasey. The state bore the burden of proof to win the case. But it only offered three exhibits to substantiate Hightower’s version of events. All three came from Kasey’s application or a letter he wrote after Hightower retaliated against him. The state couldn’t produce evidence Hightower performed any work on Kasey’s application in the 5 1/2 months it was active. Brodie’s witnesses couldn’t keep their stories straight under cross-examination, and their testimony was completely different from their interrogatory responses. Kasey’s nearly two-dozen exhibits also established a clear timeline of events that matched his application and testimony.
Instead of facing the humiliation of possibly losing a case to someone without legal training, Brodie fabricated a statement and misrepresented Kasey’s application when filing an emergency motion to amend the state’s decision. Brodie knew his emergency motion was false when he signed it under penalty of perjury, thereby committing a class B felony.
Brodie argued that the rule of law doesn’t apply to the Attorney General’s Office; Kasey argued it did. Administrative Law Judge Eliza Jane Manoff agreed with Brodie; she allowed the state to invent evidence and then used it as fact in her decision.
Brodie may have also misrepresented a legal decision to coerce the court to throw DCYF interrogatories out of evidence. He successfully argued the interrogatories would “impeach his client’s testimonies” if the court allowed Kasey to quote from them and cited an unknown case. Interrogatories are used to substantiate witness testimony, not refute it. The evidence also suggests Brodie coordinated false testimonies among DCYF witnesses to deceive the court.
This report includes the following:
Screenshots from official documents and exhibits.
Media clips and quotes from testimony.
Indisputable evidence proving the assistant attorney general fabricated evidence and committed perjury.
Additional evidence implicating the court of judicial bias.
We’re all victims of crime when the public trust is abused. What follows is a firehose of evidence proving the corruption of Assistant Attorney General Kaelen Brodie.
# # #
Table of Contents
1. The False Emergency Motion.
a) Status Conference
b) Judge Manoff’s Ruling
2. What Drove Kaelen Brodie to Break the Law?
3. Questionable Courtroom Irregularities.
Postscript: Dry Wit
THE FALSE EMERGENCY MOTION
RCW 9A.72.020: Perjury in the First Degree:
(1) A person is guilty of perjury in the first degree if, in any official proceeding, he or she makes a materially false statement which he or she knows to be false under an oath required or authorized by law.
(2) Knowledge of the materiality of the statement is not an element of this crime, and the actor's mistaken belief that his or her statement was not material is not a defense to a prosecution under this section.
(3) Perjury in the first degree is a class B felony.
In a repeat of establishing Laurel Hightower’s criminal misconduct, the most damaging proof of Kaelen Brodie’s misconduct is the easiest to prove. Brodie intentionally misquoted Kasey’s testimony and misrepresented his application statements when filing a false emergency motion to amend the state’s decision.
The entire premise of Brodie’s emergency motion was that Kasey admitted during testimony that he worked for his friend’s company, which was a marijuana dispensary in Oregon.
However, Kasey never said or wrote it. In fact, Kasey went out of his way to explain how and why he never worked for his friend’s company.
Included on his financial worksheet was a one-page addendum Kasey provided with those explanations. Below is a portion of that addendum with minor redactions.
Someone who was “prohibited from having anything to do with a marijuana dispensary within the city limits,” and “wasn’t even allowed to volunteer at [a] business that [he’d] co-founded” clearly could not work for that company.
Kasey’s testimony matched his application statements.
Below is a media clip of Kasey’s testimony. Also included is a transcript of the exchange between himself and the assistant attorney general if the media is difficult to hear or doesn’t work.
Testimony: Kasey's testimony matches his application.
TRANSCRIPT
Brodie (first quoting from Kasey’s application, and then following with a question): “‘I became a personal assistant and my duties mimicked those duties of a chief operating officer. At one point I had 77 different duties that spanned from advertising to accounting to public relations to employee supervision.’ How is that statement consistent with your testimony that you didn’t have anything to do with the company?”
Kasey: “I admit that I embellished my role with Reina. What I wanted to do with that explanation is show DCYF that I could multi-task effectively because it would then show that I could handle being a first-time parent better. First-time parents feel overwhelmed at times, but I can multi-task efficiently. … People embellish their work all the time. It’s totally accepted. … I had no duties specifically with Reina’s company. The only thing I had was with her directly, mainly as her caregiver, because she’s almost totally disabled.”
Brodie’s emergency motion swore that Kasey testified he embellished his role with the company [marijuana dispensary]. That was clearly false, as Reina is a person, not an entity.
Below is a screenshot from Brodie’s false emergency motion. You can compare what Brodie intentionally misquoted to how Kasey testified.
Kasey never said he embellished his role with the company. Brodie’s corrupt intent is clear from how he worded his emergency motion.
The basis for the emergency motion was to establish Kasey admitted to having a role “with the company.”
Brodie quoted parts of five sentences but failed to quote the basis for his motion.
Brodie omitted Kasey’s follow-up statement, “I had no duties specifically with Reina’s company.”
Had Brodie included Kasey’s follow-up statement, it would have negated his emergency motion’s purpose. That’s why he excluded it.
Also included in Brodie’s false emergency motion were the following notable paragraphs:
Brodie quoted the WAC (Washington Administrative Code) and emphasized “must” from ’must allow,’ and “during” from ’during the hearing’ for why he had the right to introduce an emergency motion in the middle of a hearing. But he disregarded the WAC’s purpose, which you can read in its last line: “to match the evidence and facts.”
Intentionally misquoting a witness’s testimony is neither evidentiary nor factual: it’s fraud.
In paragraph G, Brodie stated that his fabrication is “new evidence.” He then reminds the court that Kasey has an obligation to be truthful in his application. If he’s not, the department may deny his license. (Kasey’s testimony over two days matched his application. Of all the people who testified, only Kasey’s statements matched the evidence and the timeline of events because he was the only person who testified truthfully.)
Brodie finished his emergency motion by falsely swearing on what the evidence above proves he knew was untrue when he signed his name.
ABA Rule 3.3 — Candor Toward the Tribunal:
(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:
make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer;
…
offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false…
The court set a status conference for January 24, 2022, to discuss Brodie’s false emergency motion.
STATUS CONFERENCE, MOTION TO AMEND THE STATE’S DECISION
JANUARY 24, 2022
The public can listen to the status conference by downloading the audio file from the court’s portal (Docket #134684). You will need to create a username and password to access the site. It’s file number 134684-581038-133049530.mp3. It’s a little over 15 minutes. Kasey’s home recording lasted 27 minutes because the three of them spoke off the record for almost 12 minutes before Judge Manoff went on the record.
Manoff called Kasey at 1 pm on January 24, 2022. She began the hearing by stating she must grant Brodie’s request to amend the state’s decision. Manoff said the WACs gave her no discretion in the matter (meaning the WACs force a court to accept emergency motions into evidence). Manoff asked Kasey if he wanted a continuance to prepare for the new allegation. Instead, Kasey asked if he could object to the motion. Manoff replied that Kasey could object, in theory, and she could hear Kasey’s arguments. Still, she said she had no discretion to do anything differently.
Kasey said he objected to the court allowing the emergency motion into evidence because Brodie deliberately misrepresented his testimony by fabricating a knowingly false statement. (After saying that, the silence was so long from Manoff and Brodie that Kasey thought they’d been disconnected.) Kasey continued by saying that Brodie intended to deceive the court and that the court could verify that from how he quoted Kasey’s testimony. Kasey also said that one of his concerns was that Brodie was too incompetent or corrupt to continue the hearing.
Kasey caught Brodie off guard. After several seconds of dead silence, Brodie said he didn’t think there was a reason to have a full motion hearing, mumbling something about a continuance. Manoff asked Kasey if he wanted to make a formal motion to Brodie’s appearance. Kasey replied that he had to because Brodie submitted false testimony on the record. Kasey added that courts are supposed to be fair and impartial, and Brodie submitting knowingly false statements into the record demanded an objection.
Curiously, Manoff replied that Brodie’s amended motion wasn’t in the record yet and was also not considered fact. Manoff said she would be the one to make that decision.
However, only minutes earlier, Manoff said she had no discretion in the matter and had to allow Brodie’s false emergency motion into the record. But that was a central theme to Kasey’s hearing, with the state saying one thing and doing something else.
Kasey asked Manoff if she had access to the transcript or a recording from the first hearing so she could confirm Brodie misrepresented his testimony. Manoff didn’t reply. Kasey continued that he was prepared to present his argument. Manoff swore Kasey in at that point.
Below is a media clip of Brodie presenting his rambling argument to the court, with a transcript of his testimony immediately below. Brodie’s argument was untruthful, and he knew it was deceptive when he said it. I bolded key areas and added red numbers to Brodie’s argument to pinpoint his false statements and will prove his deception below.
Testimony: Brodie's false argument.
TRANSCRIPT
Brodie: WAC 388-02-0260 and WAC 110-03-0230 allows the department to request to amend the notice of a department action before or during a hearing to match the evidence and facts of a case. And in this case the department does so, uh, I filed the motion, uh, several days ago, uh, to amend the department’s action, uh…the…in the hearing, uh, Mr. Kasey testified that he had, quote ‘nothing to do with the marijuana dispensary.’ Uh, however, he previously indicated to the department in writing something different to that. 1 Uh, and Mr. Kasey then stated that he, quote ‘embellished his role with the company to DCYF.’ 2 When the applicant for a foster care license is not truthful with the department, the department can deny that applicant’s request for a license and that is WAC 110-148-1625.1.e, which states the department may deny or revoke your license when you knowingly provide false information. Uh, so here, uh, when Mr. Kasey stated [to the] the department in writing he had 77 duties for the marijuana dispensary 3 uh, he apparently had embellished his role in that writing. So based on that the department moves to modify the notice to include this separate basis for a revocation. Um, I reviewed the recording of the hearing in writing, uh, this motion. I listened to the hearing, uh, and I included the citation time stamp 4 actually to the portion of the hearing that I was quoting. Uh, I believe the quotation, uh, that I have in here are accurate to the best of my knowledge, uh, and I think that they support the request that I’m making to the court. 5 Uh, and I don’t think that the court has discretion to deny my motion based on 110-03-0230 as well as 388-02-0260, uh, so I would request that the court grant the motion, thank you. 6
1 = As previously shown, Kasey’s application stated he had nothing to do with his friend’s dispensary. He went out of his way to describe why he didn’t and couldn’t have any connection to it. His testimony matched his application. Brodie manufactured a false statement to deceive the court.
2 = Below is a media clip of Kasey’s first-day testimony. He testified he “embellished his role with Reina (his friend).” Kasey added, “I had no duties specifically with Reina’s company.” You can listen to both days’ testimony, and Kasey never said what Brodie’s emergency motion swore he said. Brodie deceived the court with his motion.
Testimony: Kasey embellished his role with his friend; no duties with the company.
3 = Brodie continued his false testimony by insisting Kasey’s application stated in writing that he had 77 duties for the marijuana dispensary [company]. Brodie quoted Kasey’s statement out of context to deceive the court. Kasey’s application described his personal assistant duties with his friend. His application statement is below, with text describing how and why he did not and could not work for his friend’s company, which is why he became her personal assistant.
4 = Brodie’s time stamp proved his emergency motion false because he misquoted Kasey’s testimony. It’s not believable that Brodie documented Kasey’s testimony to the second for the court and then misquoted it after swearing it was accurate.
5 = Brodie’s quote was false, and he knew it was false when he signed his emergency motion to amend under penalty of perjury. The basis for his motion was that Kasey admitted a role in his friend’s company when testifying. But Brodie quoted everything Kasey said except the basis for his emergency motion!
6 = The WAC does not allow the Attorney General’s Office to force an administrative court to accept knowingly and provably false evidence into the record. The WAC states that the motion to amend must match the facts and evidence. The state would never lose a case if it could fabricate facts and evidence and use the WAC to force it into the record. That’s basic common sense. You don’t need legal training to know that.
Brodie’s defense would probably be that he made an innocent mistake and didn’t intend to mischaracterize Kasey’s application. However, he began his deception during the first hearing. Brodie asked Kasey a question by misrepresenting his application, and Kasey had to correct him. Specifically, Brodie said “working at that company” and “doing that company’s work” would mean someone became an employee of that company. Kasey had to correct his mischaracterization that he only worked for Reina herself as her personal assistant and “had nothing to do with the dispensary.” Brodie acknowledged he understood Kasey’s testimony by saying “okay” at the end, which would undercut his argument of making an innocent mistake.
Testimony: Brodie claimed Kasey worked at and for the company.
Brodie’s apparently never heard of an independent contractor because he described what independent contractors do. They work for someone at a company doing company work, but they’re not an employee of the company. Kasey worked for his friend as a personal favor because she was too disabled to do the work herself. However, he went out of his way to stress he didn’t work for the company.
There’s no conceivable way Brodie made a mistake when filing his motion. Based on the first hearing’s testimony and Kasey’s application statements, Brodie laid the groundwork to deceive the court early in the process.
The court allowed Kasey to reply, with a transcript of Kasey’s argument below.
Testimony: Kasey responded to Brodie.
TRANSCRIPT
Kasey: What I said is, ‘I admit I embellished my role with Reina.’ Mr. Brodie falsely accused me of saying that I embellished my role with the company. I said no such thing and the transcript will prove he’s lying. Mr. Brodie’s intent to deceive the court and slander me is clear from how he quoted my testimony. As the court will notice on page 2 paragraph D, he quoted everything I said except the word ‘company.’ If I’d said company, why didn’t he quote it? It’s because he knows I didn’t say the word company and that shows his corrupt intent. A few sentences after I said I embellished my role with Reina, I remarked, ‘I had no duties specifically with Reina’s company.’ Also, Ms. Borup from the OLCC testified I never had a role in Reina’s company. Reina testified I never had a role in her company. And now, Mr. Brodie’s fabricating things I never said when I described how and why I never had a role in Reina’s company.
The status conference should have ended when Kasey delivered that testimony proving Brodie’s deception to Judge Manoff. But the hearing continued because the judge said she didn’t completely follow Kasey’s argument. She lost him when he pointed out that Brodie didn’t quote “with the company,” despite those three words being the only reason for him filing an emergency motion.
The following media clip is an exchange between Kasey and Manoff. You will hear when the lightbulb goes off inside Manoff’s head, and she realizes Kasey’s argument is correct: Brodie fabricated a statement to deceive her court. Their exchange is below if the media is difficult to hear or doesn’t work.
Testimony: Kasey and Manoff discuss Brodie's false emergency motion.
TRANSCRIPT
Manoff: Alright. Um, Mr. Kasey, um, I must admit, I did not completely follow your argument. Um, so, um, can you go, I’m sorry, can you kind of go over the part again about, um, I, so I’m looking at the document now. You said something about the word “company,” and I kind of lost you there as far as what you were referring to, if you wouldn’t mind, um —
Kasey: You see, Mr. Brodie’s entire motion is saying that, according to him, I said that I embellished my role “with the company.” And I never said that. I said I embellished my role with Reina. Mr. Brodie is saying that I embellished my role with the company. Reina’s a person. She’s not an entity. I never had a role in Reina’s company, and we’ve been over this for hours. And [Brodie] continues to pound home a false accusation. And look at, do you have the uh, the motion in front of you, your honor?
Manoff: I do.
Kasey: Okay. So page 2 paragraph D, if you look at everything he quoted, is if I’d said the word company, why didn’t he quote it? It’s because he knows I didn’t say it.
Manoff: So, Mr. Kasey, I don’t see the word company in quotes, but maybe I’m just not looking…
Kasey: Well, precisely! That’s exactly my point, is if I had said that I embellished my role with the company, why didn’t Mr. Brodie quote it?
Manoff: Okay, now I follow your argument.
Kasey: Because I never said I had a role with her company. I said I embellished my role with Reina…And again, embellished isn’t a crime. It means to enhance, to make something more attractive by the addition of decorative details or features. Also, elaborate is what embellished means. I feel like I’m in eighth-grade English again.
Manoff: All right, thanks, Mr. Kasey, I just wasn’t quite following, but now I understand your argument.
That exchange between Kasey and Manoff rattled Brodie. Not only had Kasey caught him lying, but the judge finally acknowledged the falsity of Brodie's emergency motion.
The judge was prepared to wrap up the status conference by then. Manoff asked Brodie if he had anything else to say, and Brodie reversed the basis for his motion!
Suddenly, Brodie said his emergency motion wasn’t quoting Kasey’s testimony. Instead, Brodie insisted the premise of his motion was in quoting the documents Kasey provided the department — that the 77 duties Kasey performed were for the business. But the evidence proves Brodie’s new argument was also false. Kasey corrected Brodie that the 77 duties he mentioned on his application were for his friend and had nothing to do with the company. Their exchange is in the media clip below, followed by a transcript.
Testimony: Kasey and Brodie offer final arguments.
TRANSCRIPT
Manoff: Okay, all right, Mr. Brodie, do you have anything else you’d like to say on this motion?
Brodie: The one thing I will add is, uh, I quoted, in paragraph D, I quoted the part that’s in quotes that was 77 different duties that spanned from etc., etc., but I want to clarify that that’s quoting from, not quoting from Mr. Kasey’s testimony, but quoting from his documents that he provided previously to the department. And I admit reciting that. Um, but that’s not from his testimony during trial. Um, and I think that that is clear in that question that I was asking, uh, in the afternoon portion of the trial.
Manoff: Okay, thank you, Mr. Brodie. Mr. Kasey, anything further?
Kasey: Uh yes, I would also like to clarify that what he quoted was from my financial worksheet that I had 77 different duties as Reina’s personal assistant and that I had no role in Reina’s company. I was very clear about that.
During the status conference, Kasey gave Brodie every chance to behave ethically, morally, and legally. Brodie should have withdrawn his emergency motion to check whether he didn’t falsely swear on it. Instead, Brodie doubled down on his dishonesty by insisting that the rule of law doesn’t apply to the Attorney General’s Office. Time and time again, he argued the court had no discretion: it must allow a false statement into evidence.
JUDGE MANOFF’S RULING ON THE EMERGENCY MOTION TO AMEND
JANUARY 24, 2022
Incredibly, Judge Manoff agreed with Kaelen Brodie. Anyone can read Manoff’s findings of fact and conclusions of law by accessing the court’s portal. But her main points are below. Manoff emphasized the word “must” from the WACs twice while disregarding the letter of the law that an emergency motion must match the evidence and facts.
Intentionally misquoting testimony and misrepresenting an application is neither evidentiary nor factual. It’s fraudulent. Judge Manoff allowed the state to submit fraudulent evidence to the record. She later used the state’s fabricated evidence in her decision.
We need to ask a question about the administrative law judge. Why did Manoff allow the state to manufacture a knowingly false statement, attribute it to their opponent, and then use that false statement in her decision?
Kasey cited his exact testimony and argued Brodie manufactured a statement. Manoff acknowledged Brodie quoted everything Kasey said, except “with the company,” which was the basis for his motion. Kasey argued Brodie didn't quote it because he knew Kasey didn't say it, meaning his motion was false.
Laziness isn’t an excuse for ignorance. Manoff had access to the testimony, with Brodie’s motion citing the time stamp. She could have confirmed the authenticity of his emergency motion in a few minutes. Her ruling indicated that she failed to do that, despite being warned Brodie had manufactured a false statement to deceive her court.
Judge Manoff’s behavior raises the likelihood of judicial bias for Docket #134684.
WHAT DROVE KAELEN BRODIE TO BREAK THE LAW?
Panic.
While this section is partly indirect evidence, it’s backed by a clear timeline of events and anchored with written confirmation and testimony. The evidence below may have driven Kaelen Brodie to file a false emergency motion and commit perjury.
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;
The interrogatory responses from DCYF’s witnesses presented a problem for the assistant attorney general. But Brodie didn’t know that until after the first hearing. The timeline of events made that clear.
As the first hearing ended, Kasey asked Manoff if he could submit the state’s interrogatory responses into evidence. He suggested using the interrogatories when questioning the state’s witnesses during the next hearing.
Brodie objected.
He argued that he didn’t know how his witnesses had responded to the interrogatories (meaning he didn’t read them before certifying their affidavits). His office also didn’t keep copies. But Kasey argued three points:
The witnesses swore their statements were true and correct.
Brodie certified their affidavits.
Brodie’s office mailed them to Kasey.
Judge Manoff agreed with Kasey’s arguments and ruled in his favor. However, Manoff didn’t have copies and wondered how she would get them. After a bit of back and forth, Kasey said he would email them to Brodie and upload them to the court’s portal for Manoff. Kasey sent the interrogatory replies from Laurel Hightower, Ann Christiansen, and Marissa Corrales to the assistant attorney general at 7:10 pm on January 10, 2022.
Brodie filed his false emergency motion to amend the state’s decision barely a day later.
The audio file of the first day’s hearing was uploaded to the court’s portal shortly after the hearing ended on January 7, 2022. Had Kasey testified during the hearing what Brodie’s false emergency motion alleged, Brodie would have filed an emergency motion immediately after the first hearing concluded. After all, a competent attorney takes notes during a trial. Brodie would have noted Kasey’s statement when it occurred had Kasey said it.
Thus, we can infer Brodie’s panic filing on January 12 did not stem from the January 7 hearing. Instead, the timeline shows the interrogatories Kasey emailed him on the evening of January 10 set off his anxiety.
When Brodie went to work on January 11 and read Kasey’s email attachments, he realized he had a severe problem with his case. Hightower testified differently to the same or similar questions, including questions she swore she couldn’t remember because she kept no documentation while Kasey’s file was active. Hightower’s testimony destroyed her credibility because of her interrogatory statements.
ABA Rule 3.3 — Candor Toward the Tribunal:
(b) A lawyer who represents a client in an adjudicative proceeding and who knows that a person…is engaging…in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding shall take reasonable remedial measures, including…disclosure to the tribunal.
Discrediting a witness is one way attorneys win cases, especially when a case has two completely different versions of the same event. One side is lying, so discrediting a witness’s testimony is the path to victory. The three best ways to destroy a witness’ credibility are:
Showing contradictions between their pre-trial testimony (interrogatory responses) and trial testimony.
Showing a witness didn’t know the answers during deposition (or interrogatory responses) but suddenly knew all the answers during the trial.
Exposing their lies.
Comparing Hightower’s interrogatory answers to her testimony would cause any attorney to panic, mainly because Brodie knew Hightower didn’t document anything as it happened when Kasey’s file was active.
Kasey’s file began on the afternoon of July 20, when he claimed Hightower began retaliating against him. So all the things Hightower swore she never documented and couldn’t remember before that date should have resulted in “I don’t recall” answers when Brodie asked Hightower questions during the trial. Instead, Hightower testified with elaborate stories and details, including precise quotes from conversations that Kasey’s evidence proved never happened. Hightower’s testimony discredited herself.
Therefore, Brodie had to discredit Kasey before Kasey could discredit the state’s star witness. Brodie required a new legal justification to fail Kasey’s home study. Unless Brodie could convince Manoff to throw the interrogatories out of evidence, there was an outside chance Kasey could win by showing that DCYF witnesses were lying.
But since Brodie couldn’t find a legitimate legal justification because Kasey’s testimony matched his application, Brodie did the next best thing: he made one up.
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation;
Brodie intentionally misquoted Kasey’s testimony, misrepresented his application, falsely swore on it, and hoped Kasey wouldn’t remember what he wrote and said. But Kasey recorded the first day’s hearing and knew Brodie had lied and falsely sworn on his emergency motion.
Supporting this indirect evidence is an email Kasey sent to Brodie on December 9 that Brodie apparently didn’t read until December 21, one day after certifying Hightower’s interrogatory affidavit he never read. The timeline is below.
December 9, 2021: Kasey sent Brodie an email outlining his perspective of events showing that the state’s original decision was nonsense. He included information Hightower and DCYF didn’t know and couldn’t have known. Kasey described his theories that Hightower began lying about him shortly after Kasey emailed a licensing division manager. That email suggested Hightower communicated poorly and wasn’t working competently. (She was likely reprimanded and blamed Kasey for her incompetency.)
December 20, 2021: Hightower answered her interrogatories, and Brodie certified her affidavit without reading it. Among the information to which Hightower swore:
She couldn’t remember how long their Zoom calls lasted;
She declined to say what they discussed because she kept no documentation;
She never emailed Kasey that she was preparing to pass his home study.
December 21, 2021: Brodie answered Kasey’s December 9 email, apparently only reading it for the first time.
January 7, 2022: Hightower suddenly remembered everything she swore she couldn’t remember and had no way of recalling only eighteen days before. Hightower’s responses indicated she was reading from a script as she included Kasey’s theories he sent to Brodie. How would Hightower know of Kasey’s theories he sent to the assistant attorney general? Unless Hightower reads his email, only Brodie could have supplied them to her.
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;
Most reasonable people could understand why Brodie would panic after reading Hightower’s interrogatories for the first time and comparing it to her testimony. At that point, Brodie must have realized the state’s original decision was illegitimate because Hightower lied about everything. Clearly, she held a grudge against Kasey, and retaliation would explain her actions.
But instead of conceding his case and losing to someone without legal experience, Brodie allowed his ego to intentionally misquote Kasey’s testimony and misrepresent his application in an emergency motion to amend the state’s decision. He falsely swore on it to deceive the court.
The timeline shows that Assistant Attorney General Kaelen Brodie committed a felony by falsely swearing on a document he knew was untrue when he signed it. He deserves to be disbarred and jailed for his crimes.
QUESTIONABLE COURTROOM IRREGULARITIES
No individual representing themselves in an administrative court against DCYF has ever prevailed against the department. But after the first hearing, Kasey felt confident that he would become the first. Even though the status conference ruling was a setback, Kasey still had the state’s interrogatories. He intended to use them to prove the state’s witnesses had testified falsely by using their sworn statements against them.
From Cornell Law School:
But the assistant attorney general had other ideas.
Before the second hearing went on the record, Brodie objected to the court allowing the state’s interrogatories into evidence. He argued that they would “impeach his client’s testimonies.” Brodie then cited a case number, which might have been a US Supreme Court ruling, and argued that such-and-such or so-and-so ruled that interrogatories couldn’t be used against witnesses for impeachment purposes. He may have cited a “no-impeachment rule,” which had nothing to do with the hearing.
Judge Manoff asked Kasey if he had a counterargument. Kasey did not because he had no idea what Brodie was talking about. Kasey could only repeat what he said when Manoff initially allowed the interrogatories into evidence. They were sworn statements, Brodie authenticated them, and Brodie’s office mailed them to Kasey.
Manoff ruled in favor of Brodie and threw the interrogatories out of evidence. Kasey was prohibited from using them to prove the state’s witnesses, especially Hightower, were lying with every breath. That ruling effectively ended any chance Kasey had of winning his appeal. Judge Manoff wouldn’t allow for a fair and impartial hearing in her courtroom.
For the record, no court case anywhere — state or federal — ruled that interrogatories couldn’t be used to impeach a witness’s testimony. Many state supreme courts have ruled the opposite: interrogatories are evidence because they’re sworn statements. They ensure that a witness is testifying truthfully.
Unfortunately, there’s no recording of that January 27, 2022, prehearing event, so it’s impossible to fact-check something that doesn’t seem to have facts. Kasey’s notes cited what occurred off the record. He also addressed his general confusion about the subject before he began questioning Hightower during the afternoon hearing. So there is documentation proving it happened.
As you can imagine, every DCYF witness changed their version of events during the second hearing, with the interrogatories thrown out of evidence. Hightower’s selective amnesia and her “I don’t recall” answers to events she could only recall when Brodie asked the questions would have been comical in a different setting.
Kasey tried quoting Hightower’s first day’s testimony when she testified, but Brodie objected each time. He argued no one could remember what anyone had said during the first hearing, and the judge had to uphold his objection because there wasn’t a transcript of a phone hearing. Despite Kasey providing time stamps and exact testimony, Judge Manoff sustained Brodie’s objections.
Given the irregularities and outright dishonesty Judge Manoff allowed in her courtroom, raising corruption issues with the court is fair.
Why would a judge initially allow interrogatories into the record if interrogatories can’t be used to impeach witness testimony? Why conduct such a pivotal part of the hearing in secrecy and without a paper trail? How would an administrative law judge with years of experience hearing DCYF cases not know department policies and procedures?
Maybe the reason no person representing themselves has ever prevailed in an administrative court against DCYF is that no one can defeat a rigged system.
The coordination of false testimony and Brodie’s manipulation was another glaring irregularity that Manoff ignored. There’s no excuse for why she turned a blind eye to justice.
The two-day hearing was conducted by phone. Manoff worked from home, Kasey was at home, and Brodie was in his office. Witnesses Laurel Hightower, Ann Christiansen, and Marissa Corrales worked at the department, as the court had to structure their testimonies around meetings and other appointments. Witnesses were somewhere other than inside a courtroom where everyone could know or learn what everyone else was saying.
But somehow, all three DCYF witnesses swore to the same events on both days despite those versions changing between days one and two. I don’t know if coordinating false testimony is illegal, but it’s unethical behavior. Not that something unethical would bother the ethically-challenged assistant attorney general.
For example, insufficient verifiable income was the state’s factual decision when denying Kasey’s license. On day one, all three witnesses testified that Hightower didn’t need to contact Kasey’s financial reference or discuss his income with him because she had enough justification for failing his application in April. But that excuse evaporated when Hightower eventually admitted only deciding to fail Kasey’s application on July 20.
So during the hearing’s second day, the state’s witnesses swore to something completely different. Suddenly, licensors never verify income because that’s not their job. Why would DCYF need to justify why Hightower never verified Kasey’s income on day one if licensors never verified it at all on day two? That’s inconsistent testimony.
How would they all know to change their stories unless Brodie, having freaked out about Hightower’s interrogatories, didn’t coordinate their testimonies beforehand? And why did Manoff pretend to ignore the previous testimony, especially when Kasey cited time stamps and objected due to its inconsistency?
Among the testimonial versions that changed between days one and two and other fact-free claims:
There’s also circumstantial evidence that Brodie helped write Hightower’s testimony for her, or they wrote it together. This exchange below was from Hightower’s testimony during the first hearing:
Brodie: Did Mr. Kasey indicate to you that he avoids talking about topics related to race?
Hightower: Yes, he does.
Brodie: Does he indicate why he avoids talking about those topics?
Hightower: He stated that he doesn’t like to talk about race due to fear that he will offend people, having offended people in the past, and finds it easier to not talk about [the subject].
Brodie structured his questioning so that Hightower would deliver that devastating line when misrepresenting Kasey’s personal information. Below is what Kasey wrote:
Brodie set up that exchange by previously asking Hightower if she recalled Kasey mentioning his father’s attitude about race or if Kasey mentioned his father on his application. Hightower answered no to both. But the sentence Hightower misrepresented on Kasey’s application was from a paragraph about his father. Brodie helped Hightower manufacture her false testimony to prejudice the court against Kasey. Courtroom testimony should be truthful and not falsely scripted beforehand, with lawyers conspiring with witnesses to conceal the truth.
There were specifics Kasey included in his December 9, 2021, email to Brodie that found their way into Hightower’s first day’s testimony. The only way Hightower would have known about them is if Brodie shared that information when helping Hightower write her testimony. Remember that Hightower’s interrogatory responses only eighteen days earlier differed from her testimony. She kept no notes or records to refresh her memory while Kasey’s application was active.
The evidence and timeline suggest that witnesses knew what questions Brodie would ask them and had fake responses prepared because they coordinated their false testimonies.
But it was only after the first hearing that Brodie realized Hightower swore to two entirely different versions of the same event. The timeline and evidence indicate Brodie coordinated new false testimonies before the second hearing so that every witness would answer the same way when Brodie asked them new questions. When Kasey raised their inconsistent testimony to the court, Brodie objected that no one could remember how they previously testified, with Manoff sustaining his objections.
Inconsistent timelines and testimony were a theme during the second hearing. On day one, Hightower testified that she didn’t really pass Kasey’s May interview. Instead, she was required to continue the licensing process because documentation is “continuous.” Documentation that licensors don’t keep and DCYF, a government agency, never retains, according to DCYF witnesses on day two. Hightower also testified she determined Kasey’s home would present an unsafe environment during her made-up interview because he couldn’t empathize with children. Her exchange with Brodie during the first hearing is below.
Brodie: If someone has difficulty empathizing or understanding people that are different than they are, could that potentially create an unsafe environment?
Hightower: Yes, I would say so.
Brodie: How so? Can you explain more?
Hightower: Children need caregivers who are able to empathize with them to feel safe with their caregivers, plus a variety of mental health concerns.
However, after Hightower testified, Christiansen testified differently about unsafe home environments. She said the department would fail an application immediately if a licensor determined that were the case. Kasey attempted to ask Hightower about that inconsistency during the second hearing.
Kasey said, “In your January 7th testimony, do you recall agreeing with Mr. Brodie that someone having difficulty empathizing or understanding people who are different from themselves could create an unsafe environment?”
Brodie immediately objected by arguing no one could remember what anyone had said during the first hearing. Even though Kasey quoted their exchange (above), the court ruled in Brodie’s favor. Hightower didn’t need to explain her inconsistent testimony, with Brodie shielding her from accountability.
Unbelievably, the court allowed Brodie to quote from Kasey’s first-day testimony and misrepresent what he said. But the court denied Kasey’s right to quote the state’s inconsistent testimony because the state claimed no one could remember how its witnesses had testified.
And on and on it went. The hearing was a firing squad instead of a fair and impartial administration of justice.
Finally, you may have noticed from Brodie’s false emergency motion that he seized on the word “embellished” during Kasey’s testimony. Brodie insinuated that Kasey admitted deceiving the department when he said he “embellished” his job duties with his friend. Below is the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition for embellish, followed by thesaurus examples.
Even though using the word embellish was grammatically correct, which Kasey used to enhance his responsibilities, he should have used a different word to describe his job duties. Over and over again during the second hearing, Brodie gaslit Kasey’s testimony through false equivalency, always adding “lying” or “deception” when referencing the word embellish.
Kasey explained to the court that while his personal assistant duties were usually limited to a couple of dozen, “at one point,” he had 77 duties. Even though his statement was 100% true, it was also an obvious exaggeration (embellishment) of his typical workload.
Some of those duties included COO-like responsibilities, including keeping spreadsheets because his friend didn’t know how to use them. Kasey researched local competitors’ pricing to help his friend run marketing campaigns. Another example was paying bills, which could be considered one duty because it’s one category. But anyone who’s ever paid bills, especially for someone else’s household, understands the attention required to ensure the bill is accurate. Then there’s logging into different websites, paying each bill, and keeping records of the bills. That’s work because it takes time to perform accurately.
But Manoff agreed with Brodie’s misrepresentations by saying she didn’t believe Kasey’s testimony. Citing no exhibits or proof, Manoff ruled that Kasey was essentially the chief operating officer for his friend’s business and, therefore, worked directly for the business. Even though Kasey’s witness and the state’s witness confirmed Kasey’s application statements were true and correct — that Kasey never worked for his friend’s business — Manoff ruled otherwise. She even used hearsay evidence to justify her decision after finding a hearsay carve-out exception in the WACs. Manoff manufactured her decision based on the state’s allegations instead of basing her ruling on facts and evidence.
What’s lost in Manoff’s decision was that Kasey was under no obligation to disclose any of that information to DCYF in his application. Throughout the process, Kasey was encouraged to tell the truth and offer explanations, and that’s how he wrote his application. He even wanted to discuss his complicated finances with the department. Below is an excerpt from his financial worksheet:
Had Kasey not offered to explain his income and finances, DCYF would never have known his affiliation with his friend because his licensor performed no work on his application and then lied about it. The department eventually admitted that no one ever asked Kasey about his finances. Instead, the department relentlessly attacked him for everything it never understood.
DCYF stopped at nothing to defend a dishonest employee, the assistant attorney general filed a false emergency motion to deceive the court, and Judge Manoff never cared about justice by allowing the state to mock it in her courtroom.
“Suffer the little children” takes on an entirely new meaning with DCYF’s corruption and its enablers throughout Washington state.
POSTSCRIPT: DRY WIT
The paragraph below summarizes the state’s case for Docket #134684.
A DCYF licensor received a case file in March. Having performed no work on the application by April, she knew she would fail the applicant's home study. Still, she interviewed him in May. Despite the licensor insisting the applicant made racist and bigoted comments, she passed his interview and scheduled a home inspection for June. She also passed that, even though the applicant supposedly made similar bigoted and racist remarks. But she never documented anything because licensors do everything from memory, despite working on up to 30 case files at once. After telling the applicant she would pass his home study, she failed it, despite learning nothing new about him. The applicant appealed, with a hearing occurring 15 months after the official decision. The licensor swore she couldn’t recall anything about the applicant or his application when he questioned her before the hearing. It happened too long ago, she said. But she remembered everything perfectly when the assistant attorney general asked her the same questions only eighteen days later. However, less than three weeks after that, when the applicant questioned her, she couldn’t recall anything again. While the applicant’s testimony matched his application and the timeline of events perfectly, DCYF witnesses changed their version of events between hearings. When the assistant attorney general feared losing his case because his witnesses couldn’t keep their stories straight, he intentionally misquoted and misrepresented the applicant when filing a false emergency motion to deceive the court. The judge let the fabrication into the record because laws allow the state to invent evidence and introduce it as fact. The judge agreed with the department on every point when upholding the state’s decision to fail the applicant. She specifically cited “case notes” the department didn’t offer or submit to justify her ruling.
If you believe that load of bullshit, let’s discuss oceanfront property for sale in Nebraska.