Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner will stand trial again in Detroit next year on a felony charge of assaulting, resisting and obstructing a police officer, barring a plea deal, her defense said Friday.
The decision by prosecutors to retry the case against Ms. Wagner comes exactly one month after the end of her first trial, when a Detroit jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the felony — prompting the judge to declare a mistrial on that count.
That same jury in November acquitted Ms. Wagner of misdemeanor disorderly conduct — which, like the felony, stemmed from an encounter between Ms. Wagner and Detroit police in March as officers attempted to remove her husband, Khari Mosley, from a Westin hotel for allegedly causing a disturbance.
The new trial is set for April 20. Ms. Wagner, 42, is discussing the possibility of a plea deal with her defense lawyers, but said Friday she is unlikely to accept a plea and wants a full acquittal.
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller said her office "will be proceeding to trial on April 20, 2020."
"We have no further comment about the matter," Ms. Miller added.
Ms. Wagner's first trial lasted about a week, and ended with nine jurors favoring a "guilty" verdict and three urging "not guilty," one of the jurors told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette afterwards.
The felony charge centers around an argument and physical confrontation between Ms. Wagner and police, in which both sides claim the other party was the aggressor.
Ms. Wagner took the stand in her own defense in November, saying that she was shoved to the ground by Officer Edmond Witcher after following officers' commands to move from the entrance to the hotel elevator as police tried to escort her husband from the building.
Officer Witcher testified that Ms. Wagner "stood in front of the elevator" and "grabbed" him when he tried to board with Mr. Mosley, and that she fell to the ground because he pushed her off of him — a reaction to Ms. Wagner "pinning" him against the wall.
The confrontation at the elevator was captured by the officers' body cameras — and by Ms. Wagner's cell phone — and was shown to the jury multiple times.
The jury in the first trial was allowed to consider the events leading up to the elevator confrontation, including at the door to Ms. Wagner's hotel room as police tried to remove her husband, after hearing a loud noise from the hallway, officers claimed. Staffers at the Westin had originally denied Mr. Mosley a key to the room because Ms. Wagner's name was the only one listed on the reservation.
Prosecutors argued that Ms. Wagner, at the hotel room, grabbed Officer Witcher and pushed him off a couple times — even though the police had shown restraint and had intended to allow Mr. Mosley to stay in the couple's room, as long as he was quiet and went to sleep.
Ms. Wagner said that although she hadn't given permission to Officer Witcher to enter her room and was trying to de-escalate the situation, the officer "very powerfully pushed the door into me and pushed into me."
The confrontation at the hotel door was originally the subject of a second felony charge against Ms. Wagner — a charge that was dismissed in April at a preliminary examination — but Judge Dalton Roberson, siding with the prosecution, permitted the jury last month to consider the totality of the incident in its ruling.
Ms. Wagner's defense has cited that ruling by Judge Roberson -- and others -- to claim she faced an unfair trial the first time.
She said she "can't see" herself accepting a plea deal now, but is open to having a discussion. She wants prosecutors to drop the remaining charge, she said.
"It's still the same that they are not going to run the clock on us and try to wear us down," Ms. Wagner said. "We're still very intent in achieving justice that we believe we are owed."
Her husband, Mr. Mosley, was acquitted in July on charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace.
Chris White, an activist with the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said his group is concerned that prosecutors are "trying to send a message" instead of going after "crime running rampant in the city of Detroit."
"It's taxpayers dollars. We're paying for this. Every day we pay their salaries," Mr. White said Friday. "We pay for a judge that has to hear this case that could be adjudicating a matter that's relevant to what's happening in our city and county today."
In November, a week before her first trial, Ms. Wagner was reelected to a third term as controller.
Julian Routh: 412-263-1952, Twitter: @julianrouth
First Published: December 20, 2019, 2:45 p.m.
Updated: December 21, 2019, 1:19 a.m.
