Cole-fired Trash Talk is Trash, Talk

[XLFD]

Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole has a nasty habit of prosecuting innocent people in the court of public opinion, tainting the jury pool by using the local media to slander individuals his office accuses of major felonies and to judge them guilty of all charges.  A perfect example of this happened a dozen years ago, in the heartbreaking case of Coach Todd Lane Johnson.  Splashed on the front page of the local paper in 2013 was a statement that offered no question of guilt by the sheriff:

"(Sexual contact between Johnson and his player) was ongoing for several years and started when the player was 13. It did not take place at the school or involve any school activities. It took place in a home in Amber Township." 

At court it was another story entirely, the woman 'victim' totally recanted her story saying that there was never a sexual relationship, that she had told investigators that in a subsequent interview, and that she felt pressured by "various people" (likely including interviewer Detective Tom Posma, the sheriff, and the prosecutor) to maintain her original false story in order to prosecute what turned out to be a man innocent of the alleged heinous crime.

The sheriff would fail to retract his untrue accusations against Johnson, and would continue taking his rhetoric to inflame some of the more high-profile cases in Mason County towards his objectives.  Many of these were not as strongly rebuffed by the facts as it was with the Johnson case, until Corey Beekman came along and showed what type of person the sheriff is.   

The Ludington Torch stayed remarkably neutral on this case when it initially happened on April 16, 2019.  Our patience provided us with some opportunities to review investigation material and even visit the event scene, where we were able to affirm some compelling evidence in favor of Beekman's defense, and wonder why the case was even being prosecuted with their one witness caught in so many untruths at the preliminary hearing.  

Realizing this, she has somehow avoided being served a subpoena by the Keystone Kounty Kops ever since, over five years after the prelim.  She didn't appear so sophisticated on the stand, but apparently the manhunt to get her to offer outrageous, perjurous testimony again has failed miserably due to her clever evasions.

Nevertheless, the family of the home invader shot by Beekman continues to try and get retaliatory justice against him, and Sheriff Cole, possessing all of the forensic material that points to Beekman's innocence, still talks crazy when referencing the case, including when it came up as a national story in 2023 due to Beekman getting honored.  In a February 9, 2023 MCP article, Cole slanderously called Beekman a murderer after he was honored for his military service at a US Congress committee hearing.  He did not hold back from explaining his repulsion:

At that point the Ludington Torch had had enough of the baseless accusations and allegations and presented a defense for Beekman, including the ballistics and toxicology reports and a look at the police report, which was amazingly exculpatory towards Beekman's guilt, despite what seemed to be an innate bias. To any citizen, the dismissal of viable self-defense claims by the county sheriff and prosecutor in this case should be troublesome, should they have to deal with their own home-invader intent on doing harm to them and their family.

A sheriff claiming a decorated war hero is a murderer, without qualifications, four years after the fact and after the prosecutor has abandoned the murder charge because the forensics point to a classic Castle Doctrine defense properly happened, is a rogue in his profession.   He would double down on his accusations when the topic was refreshed earlier this year by making assertions that Beekman was coming after him, comments that made the basis for a FOIA request sent to Sheriff Cole that I reprint here:

One would think that the sheriff would love to prove his claims by showing the written threats and plans he talks of that Beekman made against him, but unlike many of us, Sheriff Kim Cole talks without worrying about saying untruths (much like the prosecution's star witness at the prelim).  I found this out when he told me twice that he would let the state police follow up on an investigation that the Ludington city police chief and the city attorney committed a serious crime against the public trust.  And it never happened; it was sent up to the prosecutor by his department without being touched by the MSP for a crime that definitely wasn't applicable rather than one where all of the elements of the crime were there. 

Did the Ludington Torch receive Beekman's dastardly plans and mischievous threats against the sheriff who held him for nearly two years in jail for defending himself from a home invader?  Nope, not even a rude or disparaging voice mail, what we received was a denial letter, calling them investigative records, using statutory FOIA language to suggest that they could be withheld, without even explaining what the records asked for were investigating:

Let's be clear, if Sheriff Cole had been sent any actual threats or devious plans to harm him, the county's top cop, he would be pressing charges against Beekman and would have continued to hold him, because he believes erroneously that Beekman got away with murder here, rather than the justified homicide the evidence points at (including exculpatory evidence that the prosecutor still isn't disclosing to Beekman, such as Kaitlyn Buck's drug test results).  The more appropriate reason no records were given out, is that they just don't exist, and if they do, they amount to rude phone calls without a verified source.  Hardly anything to condemn a man for.

Sheriff Cole has been caught in another high profile lie, this time it's not assassinating the character of a local coach, it's not preventing justice from being enacted upon the city police chief for a crime he committed, it's a combination.  He's assassinating the character of decorated military hero Corey Beekman and preventing the truth from coming out that shows that he is continuing the libel and justly deserving defamation charges to be filed against him by the victim of his slander.