Follow the money Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson paid to prosecute three Tacoma police officers for the death of Manuel Ellis, and you'll find a high-profile attorney, pricey jury consultants, kebab lunches, prominent experts and a lot of coffee.
More than $4 million was spent on legal services, expert witnesses, consultants, a private investigator and trial expenses from February 2021 through December last year, according to invoices and receipts released to The News Tribune through a public records request.
That figure is just a piece of the financial costs for various government agencies that stem from the March 3, 2020, death of Ellis in police custody and the subsequent criminal case — one of the most notable to come out of Tacoma in recent memory.
It doesn't factor in how much the Attorney General's Office paid its own employees for time spent working on the case. That includes assistant attorney generals Kent Liu and Lori Nicolavo, who helped lead prosecutors' trial team with special prosecutor Patty Eakes, who was hired as a contractor.
In the records released to The News Tribune were 36 invoices from two law firms totaling $3,367,060.61. Also 32 invoices from expert witnesses, a private investigator and consultants. Their work amounted to $686,193.17. That includes the expertise of a jury consultant known for his work on the O.J. Simpson murder case. In the Ellis case, he helped conduct a mock trial and traveled to Tacoma from California for jury selection.
That brings outside costs to the Attorney General's Office in the Ellis case to at least $4,053,253.78.
Tallying the true cost would have to include the investigations that took place before Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank were charged with murder and Timothy Rankine with manslaughter. Also the $1.5 million the City of Tacoma collectively paid the men to resign from the city's Police Department after a jury acquitted them of all charges. It would have to include what Pierce County spent on preparing for the trial, such as a trip to Hennepin County, Minnesota, where a contingent of representatives toured the district court facilities where former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd.
There's also the $4 million that the family of Ellis was to be paid by Pierce County to settle part of a wrongful death lawsuit. And the internal investigation done by the Tacoma Police Department. You might also count the money Collins, Burbank and Rankine were paid while on administrative leave for three years as the case dragged on — some other police departments in the United States have suspended pay for officers accused of crimes.
And the costs might grow. In April, Rankine and his wife filed claims seeking $47 million in damages from Tacoma and state officials, alleging he was falsely accused of racially biased policing. The Ellis family's lawsuit against Tacoma and the officers identified as being involved in Ellis' death is ongoing in U.S. District Court.
But the 10-week trial that prodded the guilt of the three officers while also scrutinizing Ellis, and pre-trial legal work that led up to it, were perhaps the most critical stages of the case.
Ferguson, a Democrat running against Republican Dave Reichert in the Nov. 5 election for governor, identified the criminal case as one of his top priorities in his 2023-25 biennial budget request. According to a spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office, its budget for the current fiscal year is $279,492,780.
Legal services, related expenses the largest cost
The Attorney General's Office has attorneys on staff as part of a small criminal-litigation unit, but Eakes was hired as a special prosecutor to help review the case before charges were filed in May 2021 and prosecute it, according to Ferguson's 2023-25 biennial budget request.
She is well-known for prosecuting the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, as a deputy prosecuting attorney for King County in the early 2000s. Ridgway terrorized the Northwest in the 1980s and 1990s, killing at least 49 women.
Eakes' experience didn't come cheap in the Ellis case. She billed the state $500 an hour.
She started work in February 2021 for the law firm Calfo Eakes, of which she was a founder. About halfway through the pretrial phase, she joined the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, which announced it was opening a Seattle office in June 2022. It has offices on three continents and has represented some of the largest American companies, including Facebook's parent company, Meta, as well as Amazon and Microsoft.
Calfo Eakes billed the Attorney General's Office $566,912.80, according to 17 invoices. Morgan Lewis billed the office $2,800,147.81, copies of 19 invoices show.
Aside from Eakes, 15 other people contributed to legal work on the case at different times, including three attorneys who worked for $425 an hour, five paralegals whose rate was $175 an hour and six legal assistants who cost $150 an hour. There was also another partner at Morgan Lewis, Molly Terwilliger, who worked during the trial itself for about 11 hours, outlining cross-examination at a rate of $500 an hour, the invoices show.
More than half the total cost of legal work on the case came from before the trial started. Before charges were filed May 27, 2021, Calfo Eakes' services and expenses from reviewing the case amounted to $262,082.50.
Over the next 28 months before trial, thousands of pages of motions, orders, witness lists, affidavits and other documents were filed in the three defendants' court files in Pierce County Superior Court.
In this pretrial stage, prosecutors and defense lawyers jockeyed over what evidence would be allowed into the trial, including a question that went to the Washington State Supreme Court to decide whether a compelled internal affairs statement from an officer who wasn't charged should be disclosed to prosecutors. That decision delayed the trial for eight months and turned out to be unnecessary.
Legal services and expenses billed to the Attorney General's Office during that time came out to $1,821,098.15.
In the trial itself, attorneys were in court Monday to Thursday. Eakes typically clocked 12 hours or more each weekday, and she worked almost every Saturday and Sunday, sometimes for a few hours but often closer to 10 or more.
She racked up about 988 hours during the trial for a price of $494,050.
More than a half-million spent on expert witnesses, consultants
The Attorney General's Office retained numerous expert witnesses for the case, including professionals in the fields of medicine, video, audio and DNA analysis and police use of force, as well as a cellphone technology expert and a crime-scene reconstructionist.
Expert witness services and expenses cost the state $416,322.01, according to copies of 25 invoices. A private investigator did some work for the Attorney General's Office during trial in late October and early November 2023, completing about 17 hours of research and consultation, according to an invoice. That cost $2,321.
Also retained were two consulting agencies, Decision Analysis Trial Consultants and Prolumina, which together cost $267,550.16.
The use of expert witnesses was plain to see. Evidence about Ellis' cause of death and toxicology, as well as videos of the police officers' actions from eyewitnesses and doorbell security cameras were all centerpieces of the trial. Experts testified about their opinions on what that evidence showed so jurors could be well informed about fairly technical information when deciding whether prosecutors had proven their case.
The effects consultants have on a case is harder to see from the courtroom.
In the four months before the trial, Decision Analysis Trial Consultants, which is based in western Los Angeles County, California, helped prosecutors prepare for trial by reviewing and providing feedback on their proposed jury questionnaire. It also did focus-group research and conducted a mock trial. Expenses for the mock trial were about $26,000, records show, and the planning leading up to it cost at least $15,000.
Named in the invoices is Richard Gabriel, president of the consulting agency and a veteran in his field who worked on the O.J. Simpson murder trial and for other high-profile defendants, including music producer Phil Spector and former Michigan state Rep. Kwame Kilpatrick.
Gabriel reviewed the jury questionnaires proposed by prosecutors and the defense, which prospective jurors fill out at the start of jury selection. In the Ellis case, the finalized forms asked about jurors' occupation, education background, news consumption, views on Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter and their knowledge of the case, among other questions.
In the days before jury selection began, Gabriel also discussed voir dire with prosecutors, the process where attorneys and the judge can ask prospective jurors questions to determine their suitability to serve.
The consultant attended nine days of jury selection. NPR station KNKX reported spotting him sitting with prosecutors on the first day, Sept. 19, 2023. According to the invoices, his daily rate was $4,000. Invoices show services such as "internet juror searches" and "questionnaire processing."
Gabriel watched opening statements Oct. 3, records show, providing notes on themes in the case and potential vulnerabilities.
Prolumina, which is based in Seattle, describes itself as a boutique firm with expertise in litigation communication. Invoices show their consultants helped prosecutors prepare audio clips and other exhibits for trial. A consultant also attended the mock trial to provide feedback to Eakes.
During the trial, consultants helped with equipment setup and teardown, did graphics design on a PowerPoint slideshow for prosecutors' opening statements — which Judge Bryan Chushcoff decided to disallow — provided support during witness testimony and compiled a weekly trial report.
202 coffees, over $47,000 in hotel expenses
The trial was a marathon, and the costs of providing contracted trial team members with meals, caffeine and hotel lodging added up over 10 weeks. Parking also needed to be paid for, along with data-service expenses and sundry needs such as office supplies, a rented copy machine and a shelf purchased from IKEA in Renton.
Altogether, the costs Morgan Lewis billed to the Attorney General's Office during trial totaled $111,775.87.
The biggest expense was hotels. During jury selection, four people stayed at the Hotel Murano, 1320 Broadway, for a little over a week, invoices show. At $136 a night before taxes and fees, the cost was $5,640.00.
Staying at the Courtyard by Marriott, 1515 Commerce St., for the rest of the trial came out to $42,306.51. A nightly stay there was $132.
The Attorney General's Office saved on some costs thanks to maximums on daily lodging and meal expenses, which are set by the Office of Financial Management. According to receipts for the hotels, lodging caps saved $6,111.59.
Morgan Lewis expensed 99 meals during the trial. That amounted to $7,600.36. Contractors frequented Cafe Azure the most, going 21 times to the now-closed business at 750 Market St.
Though daily caps on meal expenses mean that the Attorney General's Office didn't pay for every entree or beverage, receipts show that contractors purchased 94 Americanos, 81 lattes, 21 mochas and six drip coffees. The meal caps saved the state $1,699.07
Right behind Cafe Azure was the Palace Kebab, a restaurant located inside Freighthouse Square where contractors spent $980.09 on items such as filet barg kebab, chicken thigh wraps and Greek fries.
The second-biggest expense during trial was various data services. It amounted to $40,997.60.
Parking at the courthouse, hotels and at a law office in Seattle cost $5,507.38. Mileage was also expensed, totaling $720.50 for 1,100 miles, long enough for about 16 round trips between Tacoma and Seattle. Miscellaneous expenses cost $9,003.52.
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