Cedar Park mayor, councilmember file criminal complaint against former CPPD detective in Greg Kelley case
CEDAR PARK, Texas - Cedar Park Mayor Corbin Van Arsdale and City Councilmember Mike Guevara have sent a letter to Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick, asking for an investigation into former Cedar Park police detective Chris Dailey's actions in the Greg Kelley case.
Van Arsdale says in a Facebook post that he and Guevara filed a complaint last night concerning Dailey possibly committing aggravated perjury, a third-degree felony, during a 2017 habeas hearing.
Greg Kelley was accused of assaulting a young boy at an in-home daycare in 2014 and was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He spent three years behind bars but Dick reopened his case in 2017 after receiving new evidence from Kelley's attorney that hadn't been heard during the first trial.
The charge against Kelley was overturned in November 2019 and he was fully exonerated of the charge later that same month. Kelley spent three years behind bars but he was released on bond in 2017.
The case became the subject of a five-part documentary series on Showtime called Outcry, which according to Van Arsdale and Guevara's letter, they watched in their entirety, seeing for the first time the video of Dailey interrogating a child in the case and footage from the August 2017 hearing "where Mr. Dailey and then-prosecutor, now-judge Stacey Mathews directly contradict each other on the witness stand."
“I think with everything going on, I think they became pressured to do something and it’s sad that it’s taken a national, actually a world documentary, for them to finally do something,” Greg Kelley said in response to news of the complaint.
“At least for the citizens of Cedar Park, this is a good first step. It’s the right step. On the other hand, I hate to point it out, but he is the only person involved in the Greg Kelley case who has been held accountable. Everybody else has gotten to skate so far except for him and, so, I hope the documentary will enlighten others and they’ll take the appropriate action,” said Keith Hampton, the attorney who represented Kelley to get his conviction overturned.
In the letter, Van Arsdale and Guevara say they are "disturbed" with the footage from the hearing, where they say it appears Dailey committed aggravated perjury while testifying on the stand, "particularly about the existence and content of his conversation with Ms. Mathews," who also testified under oath at the hearing and emailed the prosecutor about the content of her conversation with Dailey.
"Specifically, Mr. Dailey denied ever speaking to Ms. Mathews about bring charges and denied telling her that his purpose in pursuing charges against the second child was to bolster the case against the first child," says the criminal complaint.
"Mr. Dailey also misrepresented how the video footage reveals he actually conducted his forensic interview with the second child...," says the letter.
“I’m glad that they’ve finally taken that first step, but they should’ve done this last year, they should’ve done this two years ago, three years ago,” Kelley said.
Aggravated perjury has a three-year statute of limitations, which the letter says is not up until August 2 of this year.
READ THE FULL LETTER BELOW:
The City of Cedar Park later confirmed that now-Officer Chris Dailey resigned from the Cedar Park Police Department Thursday, effective immediately.
“It’s taken this to finally start that ball rolling. I saw that Detective Dailey resigned and that’s a big plus, that’s a victory because I know that man should never have a badge again. And I’m glad that he’s never going to do this to somebody again,” said Kelley.