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It’s been nearly three years since a trio of Portland police officers leaked an internal report that falsely discredited a fierce police critic. But the fallout continues.
A quick reminder of what went down on March 3, 2021: A woman called police to say she’d been the victim of a hit-and-run in Southeast Portland. She named a suspect: Jo Ann Hardesty, the city commissioner who was frequently critical of police.
But the victim was wrong. Hardesty didn’t have a working car, and the woman behind the wheel was a Black motorist from Vancouver, Wash.
Before that came out, however, three police officers, including the head of their union, leaked suspicions of Hardesty’s involvement to outside groups, including The Oregonian.
All three officers were disciplined. And, according to a pair of memos recently obtained by WW, two have faced further repercussions from the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, thanks to what they said after the leak.
In the past year, both Officer Kerri Ottoman and former union president Brian Hunzeker have been added to prosecutors’ Potential Impeachment Disclosure Index. The index is sometimes known as the Brady List, after a Supreme Court ruling in 1963 that requires prosecutors to disclose any evidence they have that might exonerate a defendant. (MCDA maintains that it isn’t a Brady List, in part because it contains officers whose misdeeds did not speak to their integrity.)
In other words, it’s a list of unreliable cops. Here’s what these two did to earn that distinction.
WHO: Officer Kerri Ottoman
ADDED TO THE LIST: Aug 12, 2023
WHY? Ottoman leaked the internal report naming Hardesty as a suspect to the Coalition to Save Portland, a political action committee with links to the police union, which revealed it on a Facebook livestream the morning after the hit-and-run. That earned her a one-day suspension.
But it was a statement Ottoman gave to an interviewer explaining her actions during the subsequent investigation that concerned prosecutors, according to a memo accompanying the Multnomah District Attorney Office’s decision.
“I had a concussion a couple years ago and part of my therapy plan and to deal with that—because I have short-term memory issues—is to take screenshots of stuff or to write it down or to have record of stuff so I can remember stuff. And so it’s become a habit for me to take screenshots or pass information back and forth that way, and so this was just kind of another one of those,” she said, according to a transcript included in the memo.
This raised red flags for prosecutors, who rely on officers’ memories to be accurate when they call them to stand. “Difficulty in memorizing perceived events is information that potentially needs to be disclosed to the defense,” they noted.
Ottoman has been on administrative leave from the bureau since last February. Still, prosecutors haven’t ruled out using her as a witness at trial, they say. Ottoman’s attorney, Anil Karia, did not respond to a request for comment.
WHO: Brian Hunzeker
ADDED TO THE LIST: Dec. 14, 2023
WHY? Hunzeker, then president of the Portland Police Association, got into hot water for leaking the same document to an Oregonian reporter. Hunzeker lost his job in the aftermath, but then got it back after an employment arbitrator reduced the disciplinary action against him to a one-week suspension.
Still, prosecutors informed Hunzeker they were considering adding him to the Brady List anyway, presumably for his role in the leak.
He responded with a nine-page letter, dated April 13, arguing that his suspension was “not related to truthfulness or untruthfulness” and did not undermine his credibility as a potential witness.
That argument was rendered somewhat moot by information that came to light the next day: WW revealed that Hunzeker had taken a second job as a Clark County sheriff’s deputy and was earning two salaries at the same time. The Portland Police Bureau later found out he’d been moonlighting, in various forms, for years without telling superiors.
Hunzeker lost both jobs. He pleaded his case to prosecutors, but the bureau’s finding that he’d been untruthful to his bosses proved decisive. They added him to the Brady List in December.
Hunzeker got his real estate license in 2022 and now works for a broker in Vancouver, Wash. He has not commented publicly on the saga since.