Law&Crime Sidebar - Gabby Petito Family’s Lawyer Claims ‘Domestic Abuser’ Utah Cop Identified with Brian Laundrie

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

Attorney Steven Jensen explains why Gabby Petito’s family may have valid grounds to sue Moab, Utah police over their response to the domestic violence incident that preceded her murder. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber has the scoop.GUESTS:Steven JensenLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. We're trying to get a local victim's advocacy group called Seataven to get him a hotel for the night so that you can have the van because they won't give you the hotel because you're the one who is the primary aggressor. Gabby Petito's family files a lawsuit against a Utah Police Department saying if they would have acted, she would still be alive today. Stephen Jensen, one of the attorneys in the case, breaks it down.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. In a move that may not have come necessarily as a surprise to people who are following the case, the family of Gabby Petito is suing the Moab, Utah. police department. The 22-year-old and her 23-year-old fiancé Brian Laundry had embarked on a cross-country van road trip where they were documenting their adventures on social media. So we are right outside Capald Reef right now in a free dispersed camp spot. And we're kind of like in the desert. They're a few trees. But in September of 2021, Petito's body was found in Wyoming with a coroner

determining that she had been strangled to death. As for Brian Laundry, he had returned. He had returned home to Florida without Petito and then he disappeared and his remains were found in October of 2021 with reports indicating that he died by suicide. A very tragic and a very sad case all around. Now, according to authorities, Laundrie actually wrote in a notebook that he killed Petito, but I do want to rewind a little bit back to August 12, 2021. This is an important date. This was two weeks before Gabby Petito died. And this is when the couple were actually stopped by police in Moab, Utah, after someone called 911, saying that they saw laundry hitting Petito. So it was just more of disagreement than that. I just wanted to...

What was the disagreement about? It was, it was, I wouldn't even call disagreement. It was just I'm dirty and I can't change being dirty. Like, I got 30 feet. I got sand in my foot pops and stuff like that. There's a few little, little things, little, just little relationships. I don't know. I've been married for over five years now. There's a lot of little things, right? And we, I get it. We really, was. We weren't physical before the point where I said, all right, let's just take a breather and, like, walk away for a minute. Gabby, this is a very, very important question. How you answer this question is going to determine what happens next.

But the only person who can answer this question is you. Think very hard before you answer the question. Do not quickly answer it. Think very hard. When you slapped him those times. Were you attempting to cause him physical pain or physical impairment? Was that what you were attempting to do? No.

What were you attempting to do? What was the reason behind the slapping and stuff? What was it you were attempting to accomplish by slapping? I was trying to get him to stop telling him. And the officers ended up letting the couple go and determined that Petito was the aggressor in that incident. Well, now, Gabby Petito's family is suing. the police department saying that they failed to follow the law and procedure and that if they had acted properly, Gabby would still be alive. Here's attorney James McConkey, who represents

Gabby's family, explaining what this lawsuit is about at a recent press conference. The purpose of this lawsuit is to honor Gabby's legacy by demanding accountability and working for change in the system to protect victims. of domestic abuse and violence, and to prevent such tragedies in the future. So let's get into the lawsuit right now, and I'm actually joined with one of the litigating attorneys for the Gabby Petito case, Stephen Jensen. Stephen is a partner at the litigation firm of Parker and McConkey in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he's handled a wide variety of personal injury cases throughout Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, all during the course of his 12-year career. And now we welcome him here to sidebar. Stephen, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So why file this lawsuit now? Why at this point in time? Well, the family reached out to us after discovering some of the facts of what happened with the Moab CD police investigation. Their initial impression was just to find out. Their focus was on the investigation into Brian Laundry.

And then as events unfolded, and investigation unfolded, they learned more, they discovered that Moab City police made some missteps and committed error that they should not have committed. And so they reached out through one of their attorneys in New York to get more thoughts on what claims they would have. So the lawsuit alleges four different causes of action. Negligence, negligent hiring and supervision, survival, wrongful death. Besides the police department as an entity. The lawsuit also names the police chief, the assistant police chief, one officer, one former officer, who I'm going to get into in a minute. What is the theory here? Can you break it down for us? What is the cause of action? What is the argument you have against

the police department? Yeah, so all of those causes of action you just laid out are generally negligence claims. The allegation is there's a standard of care that all officers and personnel need to follow when conducting an investigation. And that standard of care is set out by industry standards, by internal procedures, by their training. And when that standard of care is breached, then they fall below that standard of care. We refer to that as negligence. We're alleging that not only was where the investigating officers negligent, but also Moab City Police in the way they hired and trained their officers that also breached the standard of care. But what specifically did they do wrong? So they had two individuals. They saw there was a

domestic incident. I'm just playing devil's advocate here because I'll tell you and I'd like your response. The Moab City spokesperson, Lisa Church, released a statement saying the attorneys for the Petito family seem to suggest that somehow our officers could see into the future based on this single interaction. In truth, on August 12th, no one could have predicted the tragedy that would occur weeks later and hundreds of miles away. And the city of Moab will ardently defend against this lawsuit. So you heard their response to it, that how could these officers have known? They saw two people. Was it clear that there was violence? Was it clear who the aggressor was? What should have been done differently? Like any injury claim, there's usually a chain of events that lead up to the

wrongful act that make that act predictable. And so here what you have is first and foremost, Utah law states that when officers encounter a domestic violence call, their circumstances where you have to arrest a certain individual that's involved. And those elements were met here. Additionally, they were required to reach out to a third party for a lethality assessment test, which would have got Gabby on the phone speaking to a professional that would have asked her certain questions that might, you know, likely would have alarmed Gabby that she was in danger. They ignored a witness call that showed that Gabby was not the aggressor, that Brian was the aggressor. She had markings on her body that showed a physical altercation, particularly to her face. That's an aggressive

move. There's no follow-up inquiry about that. They should have asked more questions. And then they would have understood that Brian was the aggressor. But again, going back to Utah law, this is outlined extensively in the complaint we just filed. But officer, Pratt was looking for a loophole. He was trying to get around Utah law. And at one point, he even says, look, this law is not discretionary. And it's not discretionary because oftentimes the abuse go back to their abuser. And this is to prevent that so they don't get killed. That's foreseeability. I mean, he he vocalized his rationale. And he showed us he understood the purpose of the statute. And he didn't follow it. The legislatures have the statute.

in place because it is foreseeable when certain criteria met that one of the intimate partner's lives is in danger. This lawsuit is not about attacking any law enforcement, and it's simply a statement that they fell below the standard of care, and they should be held accountable. But why do you think they did it, right? Is it because they were lazy? I mean, is the allegation that they were lazy? Is the allegation that they thought that Brian was telling the truth? Did they ignore Gabby? And was it was a situation where they said, you know what? We don't want to deal with it. What would be the rationale for police officers to look at these two people who, by the way, they separated into different areas. And they did ask them both questions

to at that point say, you know what? We're going to let it go. Why would they have done this? We get new facts pretty regularly that give us a better insight into this claim. We're still in the early stages. But yeah, it does, it does appear to be multiple factors, one being some laziness. It's the desire to avoid work, doing paperwork. That's even, that sentiment is expressed in the investigation, you know, this idea that, hey, if you take steps to arrest, it's going to result in more work. Eric Pratt, he, he had mentioned in a podcast himself that he liked to find loopholes to law so that, so that he didn't like officer work, he said, so he'd find loopholes.

So, you know, that he resigned, right? he resigned yeah he he resigned and again there's there's a lot of facts still coming out about him and and uh his background and reason for resigning some of which are traveling and may carry over into to to this case as well and and those facts also are laid out in the pleadings but and then you know i i think these officers were not trained in some aspects as well as they should. You had Officer Pratt, who was the senior officer, essentially giving all the responsibility a junior officer saying, look, you do what you want. And then the lack of questioning and following up on what happened, why Gabby was frantic in the car that you have witnesses stating Brian was hitting

her. There was another witness that came forward that was reported on that saw Brian hitting her. and Brian's very calm at the scene, and she's frantic. So they just concluded very quickly that Gabby's the aggressor, all of those given together and additional things as we lay out suggest that they were negligent. So, Stephen, we have about 30 seconds left. The last question I want to ask you is, how can you tie what happened there to the killing? Because I'm sure the officers are going to come back, and the police department's going to come back and say there's a million of domestic violence calls all the time.

even when we arrest somebody, it doesn't necessarily mean that there could be situations where that we separate two people later on, a killing still happens. It still happens. Even if you stop them, there's times that the attacker would come back or situations where you don't stop people and it doesn't result in this, doesn't result in someone being killed. So I'll give you about 30 seconds to answer that. I mean, how do you tie this event to the actual killing? We'll never know, but it definitely would have given her a chance.

It would have made her aware. Had she done the fatality assessment test, had they made an arrest, it would have elevated it. Other people would have intervened. There would have been more awareness what kind of danger she was in. But the fact the law is in place just for this reason and they didn't follow it, she was not given that extra opportunity. Well, Stephen, listen, I think this is a really interesting case and could have an effect

on police departments across the country. So as this case actually progresses, you have an open invite to come back here on Saibar to talk about the new developments. You said there's facts that keep coming out. But Stephen Jensen, thank you for taking the time. And speaking about this, it is a tragic case. And this is just another update in it. Stephen, thank you. Thank you.

And thanks so much, everybody, for joining us here on Saibar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this. Law and Crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.