Ed Troyer’s lawyer: ‘No evidence to support these criminal charges’

After multiple delays, including a recent bout with the flu before Thanksgiving, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer is now being tried for two misdemeanor counts of false reporting and making a false statement.

Troyer is on trial for an incident that happened in October 2021, when he allegedly called an officer line to 911 dispatch claiming a Black newspaper carrier, Sedrick Altheimer, threatened to kill him. An officer with the Tacoma Police Department reportedly said that allegation was retracted.

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“We said [in] our opening statements, the allegation is that he rejected or retracted or backed off his claim of a threat, and our proposition, and we’ve stated this in court, is that never happened,” said Anne Bremner, Ed Troyer’s attorney.

As of Thursday morning, Tacoma officer Corey Ventura was the first witness to testify. Ventura was one of the responding officers to the incident.

“The other officer who made this statement wasn’t wearing a body camera, didn’t take notes, and wrote a report later,” Bremner continued. “Another officer contradicted what the first officer said, and that officer said Sheriff Troyer claimed that there was a threat. So the whole case is like a house of cards, in our argument to the jury, that there should be no evidence to support these criminal charges.”

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Is Troyer only being targeted because of his role as Pierce County Sheriff?

“I do,” said Bremner. “I look at somebody that’s so high profile – would this happen to any rank and file officer? I’ve never seen it.”

Listen to the rest of this interview below:

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