Police officer Daniel Holtzclaw filed a request for a new trial on the eve of his sentencing. Holtzclaw was convicted of raping and sexually harassing eight women while on duty.
According to Yahoo News, the former police officer filed the request late Wednesday through his attorney Scott Adams. On December, Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted of 18 charges and acquitted him on 18 others. The police officer from Oklahoma City could serve up to 263 years in jail.
The court documents contain Attorney Scott Adams arguments about a Facebook post made after the jury verdict. Adams said that the post proved to be a new evidence in the case, as reported by KOCO. The lawyer of Holtzclaw then argued that his client was denied a just trial because the government made deliberate discovery violations and misrepresentations, undermining confidence in the verdict.
Holtzclaw was caught visibly sobbing as the verdict was read before him. He was accused of raping 13 women, and prosecutors said that the former police officer intimidated these women into not reporting the crimes he has made. Meanwhile, Garland Pruitt of Oklahoma City NAACP told the council that he would like to see a board created to address police officers and community relations. According to News 9, Pruitt wants to have some oversight, an independent body to look closer at these cases.
The court filing that took on Wednesday aims to have a new evidentiary hearing, claiming that the prosecutors involved in the sentencing of Holtzclaw withheld evidence. The filing said that if there is additional DNA proof despite the government's representations to the contrary, and if there are other people who came forward and falsely claimed that they were one of the victims, then deliberate misrepresentations we made not only to the defense counsel but the court. This shall question the credibility and integrity of the government's entire handling of the case.
It has been reported that Holzclaw's case was just one out of 1,000 US officers who lost their licenses due to sex crimes. Daniel Holtzclaw's conviction was streamed live online and on TV.
