'Targeted, hunted and pursued': Cal Harris files sweeping suit against Tioga officials

A year after being acquitted of his wife's murder, Cal Harris has filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against the people his attorney claims have "targeted, hunted and pursued" him over the course of a 15-year legal saga.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Syracuse federal court, faults dozens of people — including police investigators, district attorney officials, trial witnesses and 20 unnamed "Jane/John Does"  — for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations.

Among the accusations: that police and prosecutors rushed to arrest Harris, now 55, without probable cause, fabricated evidence, and ruined his reputation during the 15 years since his estranged wife, Michele Harris, disappeared. In that time, the Spencer man was convicted twice of second-degree murder — both overturned — and spent more than three years in prison. A third trial ended in a deadlock, then a fourth trial judge found him not guilty.  

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"Mr. Harris was targeted, hunted and pursued; he was incarcerated for more than 3½ years, removed from his four small children, demonized by scathing wide-spread local national media coverage," defense attorney Bruce Barket wrote in the 26-page lawsuit.

"Even after his acquittal," Barket said, "(Harris) continues to be labeled a murderer as a result of public statements made by the District Attorney and law enforcement."

Among defendants named in the lawsuit are former Tioga County District Attorney Gerald Keene, who is now county judge and prosecuted the initial two trials; New York State Police Investigator Steven Andersen, who offered testimony about forensic evidence during the trials; the current Tioga County District Attorney's Office; and other witnesses who testified for the prosecution.

Lawyers for the defendants are expected to file a response to the lawsuit at a later date. An initial conference has been scheduled for Dec. 15 in federal court.

In brief remarks following the May 2016 acquittal, District Attorney Kirk Martin stood by law enforcement’s investigation and the prosecutions against Harris by stating, "I have a job and a responsibility to pursue justice."

'Now or never'

Barket, in the lawsuit, outlined a sprawling investigation by state police: The discovery of several small bloodstains totaling 10 drops in the Harris estate prompted foot, air and canine searches aided by sonar, radar, heat-sensing and night-vision equipment. But none of those efforts over a half-decade revealed Michele Harris' body or a murder weapon.

Realizing that it was "now or never" and that "the case wasn't getting any better," Barket said, law enforcement set out to compile a case against Cal Harris. This formed the basis of the lawsuit's allegations of malicious prosecution and civil rights violations.

During the course of four trials in two counties, the prosecution’s largely circumstantial evidence case argued Cal Harris killed Michele Harris as a final act of control in their divorce proceeding and then hid her body, leaving behind millimeter-sized blood spatter stains in the Spencer home after cleaning up the rest.

In the lawsuit, Barket argued prosecutors misrepresented to jurors that the bloodstains belonged to Michele, without performing confirmatory tests. 

According to police, tests that were performed showed the DNA in the blood matched Michele's, but it also could have been from one of her blood relatives.

Barket contends in the lawsuit that police physically altered the bloodstains before taking photos, then portrayed those images to jurors as an untouched scene.

Barket also argues the prosecution knew there was an innocent explanation for the blood droplets and could not prove how recently it had been deposited, but still proceeded with a theory that Cal Harris bludgeoned his estranged wife to death.

The lawsuit also accuses prosecutors of grooming witnesses, including the Harris family babysitter and Michele Harris' hairdresser, to testify untruthfully, giving inconsistent statements on the stand that would help incriminate Cal Harris:

• Barbara Thayer, the Harris family's babysitter, testified she made a call from the Harris home to Michele's cellphone the morning of her disappearance. The defense said she did not have enough time to make the call, but Cal Harris did.
• Michele's hairdresser, Jerome Wilczynski, testified he overheard Cal Harris threaten to kill her and make her disappear. The defense countered he left that out of his initial statements to police, that Cal Harris actually urged her to drop the divorce or he would make it very difficult for her.

According to Barket, other men in Michele Harris' life were overlooked as more viable suspects: Texas residents Stacy Stewart and Chris Thomason, both acquainted with Michele, could have been involved in her murder based on claims that bloody clothing was burned on Stewart's property in Tioga County in September 2001, Barket said.

In the lawsuit, Barket said statements both men gave to police were "riddled with inconsistencies and demonstrable lies," but investigators never excluded them as suspects.

'Injuries and damages'

The federal lawsuit seeks unspecified compensation in an amount to be awarded at trial for "injuries and damages" sustained by Cal Harris during the course of the criminal case.

Following the first trial in 2007, newly discovered evidence prompted a judge to reverse the conviction. A second trial put Cal Harris in prison for 25 years to life, but an appeals court in 2012 ordered a third trial in 2015.

The fourth trial in 2016 was the result of a jury's inability to decide a verdict, so Cal Harris agreed to have a judge decide the case.

Cal Harris' lawsuit argues Tioga County officials and police, acting in the scope of their employment, deprived him of civil liberties by misrepresenting the facts of the case throughout each of those trials, leaving him with an enduring public stigma.

"There was not even arguable probable cause to arrest or prosecute Mr. Harris ... and no reasonable officer would have believed there was," Barket said in the lawsuit. "The actions of the defendants ... constituted a conscience-shocking failure to investigate the disappearance of Michele Harris."

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