Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi dropped charges against 24-year-old Brandon Burns more than a year after he was jailed and charged with torching the Cosmopolitan Apartments being constructed downtown along the canal. I said at the time I believed Burns was being framed for an arson job carried out by a hired professional. Brizzi cited evidentiary problems for dropping the charges according to the Star's Jon Murray. Insurance proceeds from the fire allowed the owner to rebuild. The homeless Burns had a history of serious mental illness and little evidence tied him to the case other than an admission he played a part in it under intense police questioning. The building's owner, Flaherty & Collins, says it understands the Prosecutor's decision and will continue to cooperate in the investigation.
The last year has been a challenging one for Flaherty Collins. The owner recently filed bankruptcy on a residential project it undertook in Raleigh, North Carolina according to the IBJ. The owner blamed the project's failure on an outside company it hired to manage the property. The owner also filed bankruptcy on another of its residential projects in Charlotte, North Carolina last November. The unfinished 53-story condo tower there had a price tag of $200 million.
On another note on our esteemed prosecutor, it seems the corporation counsel's office has informed Brizzi that it will no longer handle public records requests for his office, which apparently have become quite numerous after recent media reports about the shenanigans going on in the office between Brizzi, his business partner and his clients. The corporation counsel says his office had to take this action to avoid a conflict of interest that is "unavoidable and concurrent." Interesting. I was beginning to think there was no such a thing as a conflict of interest as far as the Ballard administration is concerned. Is it possible the investigation of Brizzi by the FBI has expanded to members of the administration?
2 comments:
Lets see 3 days before (when you should be prepaing for trial) you drop this turd on the public? What a POS Brizzi is... He is so busy dealing with public information requests (the media wants every email he has ever sent or received since he has been in office) which has functionally made him incapable of carrying out the duties of his office. City legal has stepped away after hearing from IMD officers about Brizzi's crooked conduct in Moberecki Case. BRIBERY=BRIZZI AND PAGE. I hope they both lose there law licenses.
They ar eboth d bags.
It did seem absurd that the police and prosecutor were trying to pin this immense arson job on a lone homeless fellow. What a wasted effort, on the part of law enforcement.
I appreciate the question you raised at the end of this post, AI.
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