PORTLAND – Attorneys for a Standish woman who is accused of beating her husband with a bat last year and then shooting herself to make it look like a robbery told a judge Tuesday that some evidence should be thrown out because police made false statements to get a search warrant.
The top investigator in the case against Linda Dolloff admitted having an error in his sworn statement seeking a search warrant, but said it was an honest mistake that he learned only recently was not true.
If Dolloff’s lawyer, Daniel Lilley, succeeds in having the search warrant invalidated, evidence such as Dolloff’s shirt — which police say has her husband’s blood on it — might be disallowed.
Dolloff, 47, has pleaded not guilty to charges of elevated aggravated assault and filing a false report. She is charged with beating Jeffrey Dolloff, 53, with a baseball bat.
Jeffrey Dolloff was beaten so severely on the head that the medical workers and police officers who first responded did not believe he would survive.
Linda Dolloff says an intruder came into the house, attacked her husband and then shot her in the abdomen before running away in early April 12.
Dolloff’s legal team has sought to have some evidence in the case thrown out, saying it is the product of an illegal search because of serious problems with the search warrant.
“You didn’t really tell the whole story. You cherry-picked facts and got your affidavit,” Lilley said, challenging the state police’s primary investigator, Detective William Ross.
During a break in Tuesday’s hearing, Lilley maintained that the evidence is not harmful to his client. “There isn’t anything that is so damaging. The integrity of the system is at stake,” he said.
For his effort to succeed, Lilley must show that Ross showed intentional deceit or reckless disregard for the truth. Ross’s affidavit seeking the search warrant says that Linda Dolloff changed her story over time.
It says that in a follow-up interview after the incident, she described touching a gun on the floor and said the gun went off. It also says that she didn’t mention that in her initial interview.
Ross now says that Dolloff did say in her first interview that the gun went off, but says he didn’t hear her say it.
Another detective’s written report about that interview and a previous interview also didn’t mention that she said the gun went off, he said.
Lilley also says Ross failed to include information in his affidavit that might support Dolloff’s version of events.
The state will seek to show that Ross’ mistake was not intentional and that there was support for the search warrant. District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said that the clothing was not taken from Linda Dolloff.
Her pants were given to police by a rescue worker who treated her, and detectives found her shirt only after digging through 8 tons of medical waste at Maine Medical Center the day after the shooting, Anderson said.
The hearing before Justice Joyce Wheeler is set to resume today in Cumberland County Superior Court.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com
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