Defendant says he was promised immunity in Crystal Rogers case. Will charges stand?
A Nelson County judge will soon rule on whether or not to dismiss the case against a man accused of being complicit in the murder of Bardstown mother Crystal Rogers.
Stephen Lawson appeared in the courtroom Thursday with his attorney, Ted Lavit, in attempt to have his case dismissed. Lavit and Lawson claim he was originally promised immunity by prosecutors in exchange for cooperation.
Rogers, a 35-year-old mother from Bardstown, went missing in July 2015.
Her body has never been found.
Late last year, Stephen and Joseph Lawson, a father and son, were indicted on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence.
Brooks Houck, Rogers’ former boyfriend, was indicted on charges of murder and evidence tampering.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
Immunity null and void because of dishonesty, prosecutor claims
Lavit’s motion cites numerous transcripts of police interrogations with Stephen Lawson where they, and prosecutor Shane Young, offer him immunity if he cooperates with their investigation. Now, Lavit claims the state has “reneged” on their deal.
Young confirmed he did offer deals to Lawson, but only on the tenet he be “100% honest.”
Transcripts show two Kentucky State Police detectives, Bryan Luckett and Tony Hardin, making promises to Lawson guaranteeing his freedom if he told the truth.
“We are offering you the opportunity of a lifetime.You can say whatever you want, as long as it is 100% the truth,” Hardin said. “Regardless of the incriminating nature of what you say and you can walk out of here today.”
“We do have a prosecutor on hand today, OK, if you was to want some kind of deal … there could be some kind of immunity, depending on what you say,” Luckett said.
Throughout Thursday’s proceedings, Young argued his promises were now null because the defendant had lied to investigators.
Young displayed video and audio clips where Lawson allegedly gave conflicting statements during jail phone calls and interrogations with Hardin and Luckett.
In the jail phone call to his wife, Lawson tells her he thinks he messed up his deal by lying.
Video footage showed him telling investigators different stories about why his former wife, the late Tammy Lawson, would have been on the Bluegrass Parkway, near where Rogers’ car was later found with her keys, phone and wallet inside.
In one instance, Lawson tells investigators Tammy Lawson was on the parkway to find him, and fight him for not bringing her “booze.” In a different interview, he said Tammy Lawson was never on the parkway.
The reality, Young said, was Tammy Lawson was also complicit in the disappearance of Rogers. She died in 2017.
“There is no bigger fan of the defendant than me,” Young said. “He is the first person to come in and tell us he was involved in the disappearance, and helping with the eventual murder of Crystal Rogers.
“We have worked over and over, we kept asking, and the problem was and is, after all these interviews, (Lawson) was minimizing his role, and he was telling a story to minimize his role which led to him providing untruthful statements,” Young said.
Defense ‘vehemently’ denies allegations of dishonesty
Lavit said his client was truthful in his interviews with Young, Luckett and Hardin.
He said he vehemently disagrees with the prosecutor’s evidence, and asserted his client told the truth on all four occasions Young referenced.
“My client had very little to do with Brooks Houck,” he said.
But if he did lie, it wasn’t intentional, Lavit said. He claimed his client was subjected to interrogations with Luckett and Hardin which were aggressive and coercive.
“I attended numerous interrogations of the defendant…and those sessions were conducted and filmed, there is audio, and on numerous occasions, the interview would stop and (detectives) were aggravated, yelling and screaming at my client,” Lavit said.
He said there are breaks in interviews. He alleged when Lawson would not tell investigators what they wanted to hear, they took him out for smoke breaks, coached him, and then went back in to record different information.
“When I was there, he told the truth, when I read the discovery he gave me, he was trying to tell the truth,” Lavit said. “In turn, he lied and they are making something out of what he said to make it a lie. ... He did not deliberately not tell the truth.”
Judge Charles Simms III will issue a written ruling.
