By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office says it learned an expert witness it used multiple times was untruthful about her credentials, including on the witness stand in court.
Toni Nelson has worked in Lewis County as a victim’s advocate, and has testified in at three least trials, primarily about delayed reporting in sex crime cases, according to Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer.
Meyer said in the past Nelson had indicated she graduated from a specific college, but he now knows she attended there but left before earning her degree.
Meyer said she also had said she had a nursing degree and was a certified teacher, both of which she admitted to him were not true.
The prosecutor said he was given information tipping him off in early January, did some research and then two weeks ago met with her and asked her specific questions.
“We’re just trying to figure out how widespread this is, ” Meyer said today.
Nelson has worked for the White Pass Community Coalition, the Human Response Network and at one time was associated with Fresh Start, according to Meyer.
The statute of limitations for bringing charges of perjury is three years, and has passed, he said. The last time prosecutors had her testify was 2010, he said.
Meyer said so far they have found Nelson had involvement in approximately five dozen cases with the prosecutors office.
He said now he’s primarily working to contact and make sure victims and defendants are notified.
“She’s had training, but the problem is, once you’re not truthful on the stand, that taints everything you say,” Meyer said.
Centralia attorney Shane O’Rourke is representing Nelson, but indicated he’s restrained from saying specifically when or why he is hired in any client’s case.
“My function is to represent somebody who is presently having significant allegations brought,” O’Rourke said this afternoon.
O’Rourke said he understands how the prosecutor’s office, if they believe they have something like they say they do, would need to look back over cases to try to determine if it could have drastic consequences.
“I can’t talk about any of the particulars at this point,” he said. “There may come a time when I can not be vague.”
He said he’s known Nelson as a professional acquaintance for about eight years, as an individual working in social services, someone known for things such as getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning to give people rides to shelters.
“I think you’d be hard pressed to find many people who have anything negative to say about her involvement,” he said. “And people would attest to the fact that this is a person who has dedicated a huge chunk of her life and career and doing what she could to help other people.”
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
@KingGringo– Are ya proposing?? Lol. J/K. …I’m not saying what she did was right but let’s. Let this story stop for now…@ToBe– bullshit! A lie is a lie no matter how big or small.. And we all are guilty of lying
Its right here in your face Lewis County officials. Yet no one takes responsibility for their actions. Law and Justice is all about a pay check. Nothing more nothing less. Its easy to understand why the Centralia Pool is closed. The Tax Feeders in charge have let the community down.
“So what if she lied ?we all have done it during our lives..?”
You’d be a serial cheater’s dream of a wife, Brittney.
Expert: you say they took your CV at face value, yet they could easily have done their homework before having you take the stand. That is if they don’t already know you. A good lawyer most definitely would have checked the honesty of your CV after you testified.
Regardless, expert witnesses are discredited all the time by lawyers performing due diligence.
Would you take testimony from an “expert witness” against your client without checking to see if the witness was who they said they were? What would happen to a lawyer who allowed testimony, that helped put their client in prison, from an imposter claiming to be an expert without checking it out?
It would seem to me that it would be a professional black eye at the very least.
There’s no point in justifying Toni Nelson’s behavior. It’s one thing to tell a lie, like you’re describing, and just moving on with life and expecting everybody else to do so as well. It’s another thing entirely to help perpetuate a climate of corruption and lawlessness that has pervaded the Lewis County court system for far too long. If the courts want to send a message that they are tough on crime, then perhaps they should refrain from committing crimes themselves and then giving themselves a pass every time.
It’s time the hand-selected ‘defense attorneys’ that the prosecutors rely so heavily on for silence and collusion against defendants are brought to task and asked why they didn’t perform simple due diligence when allowing a jury to hear disqualified testimony from a perjured “expert”.
All the good Toni may have done is now a lost opportunity. She could have done good things, but instead she got in the proverbial bed with corrupt people turning everything she did into one cruel joke and the laugh is on the children involved and the abused women.
I would be surprised if there isn’t a lawsuit at some point against either the attorneys involved for not upholding the ethical standards required of courtroom lawyers or the court itself for using the testimony of someone they knew was an unqualified witness.
If Meyer’s excuses are true, that they never do background checks on employees, it would mean that a child molester could waltz into the courthouse, get hired as a domestic violence advocate, and proceed to give contrived testimony in child abuse cases without so much as raising an eyebrow from the judges, prosecutors, or defense attorneys.
But, then again, from the incompetence and corruption so many of us have seen and experienced first-hand from the Lewis County Courts, I would not be surprised.
So what if she lied ?we all have done it during our lives..? She has done more good for the community then most. Not one of us is sin free so people just need to leave the Lady alone
This is what I said:
“I have worked and testified as an expert in dozens of criminal cases, all for the defense. In each case, my CV was taken by both defense and prosecution at face value. Never had to submit proof that I had the training/educations I was stating I had.”
Orr, you are not correctly stating my position. What courts and who there did you talk to?
I couldn’t find one person willing to state on the record that they use testimony of people who don’t provide credentials. Then assured me that they do not just allow any joe blow off the street testify in court cases due to the fact that, if they are questioned under oath they avoid instances of PERJURY. By an large, they say the same thing goes for defense witnesses. Defense lawyers rarely use fake ‘experts’ due to the simple fact of “due dilligence” on the part of prosecutors doing background checks.
So to claim that you were able to give testimony without anybody checking your credentials is dishonest. They could easily have validated your experience through a quick records check.
Any defense attorney who does not perform due diligence when it comes to the veracity of ‘expert witnesses’ should be sued for incompetence.
To be Orr…
Still waiting for the results of those phone calls. Oh wait, are you just a bag of hot air?
To Be Orr…
Still waiting on the outcome of those phone calls.
To Be Orr…
King County, Snohomish County, Pierce County, Douglas County, Kitsap County. That is WA. Also Pima County, AZ, York County, Penn, Pueblo County, CO. Please let us know what they told you when you call them.
Absolutely no mention of instituting a policy requiring verification of credentials to avoid another liar giving testimony in criminal court cases.
This means that there is nothing stopping somebody like Ted Bundy from fabricating experience, getting hired, and providing testimony against innocent people accused of crimes.
Just one big kangaroo court.
The Lewis County Courts would be really happy to believe that they don’t check the background of the people they use for expert testimony in court.
This means that a convicted murderer can just waltz into the Clerks’s office, turn in an application, and be hired and used in court even if their information is all lies.
It also means that private attorneys hired to defend clients didn’t bother to practice due diligence. This would mean that the attorneys would be vulnerable to a lawsuit.
But we all know the crooked court wouldn’t use the liar in a case that included a private law firm.
No, they only used the expert liar when there was a public defender because they knew they would never bother to practice due diligence for an indigent client.
Seems legit.
Expert, it sounds like you’ve only been working in Lewis County and it has already been established that they don’t practice due diligence when using “experts”.
If you’ve been an “expert” in other court cases elsewhere, please let me know which ones because I would like to call them and ask why they don’t practice due-diligence when using an “expert” for court testimony.
Stupid Defense Attorney you are exactly right. This is proof the the public pretenders are not doing their jobs. This fact alone proves insufficent council while pretending to represent their clients. The community knows that the Courts are Kangaroo, its time to turn off that football game and demand real justice in the form of a public lynch mob. These clowns want to keep raising our taxes while this crap is going on at the Law and Justice Center. Maybe if they wernt spending our money on statues and wasting tax dollars we could get these dity cops outfitted with dash and body cameras. Please dont support your local cop suckers.
Bdog, is correct… whole county is screwed up…
Don’t let anyone out due to this coming up. Everyone needs to do their job!
I swear every time I go to town someone is lazy and drops the ball!
No one wants to put in the time but everyone wants the reward. I see it daily at my own business.
Can’t help who doesn’t want it.
I have worked and testified as an expert in dozens of criminal cases, all for the defense. In each case, my CV was taken by both defense and prosecution at face value. Never had to submit proof that I had the training/educations I was stating I had.
The whole county is messed up.especially the courts,their is no help for people,except put them in jail.and no resources in their.
how about we lay part of the blame on who it should placed on. lazy ass defense attorney’s who don’t take the time to check an expert witness who is testifying against their client. wouldn’t you expect a person representing you to do just tha. i would. if the defense allows the testimony the fault is on the defense, not the prosecutor.
I’m surprised that no one ever bothered to check this liar’s background.
XDs says:
Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 12:26 pm
All cases she was involved with should be overturned.
I’m not ready to let a child rapist out on this alone, but any court cases she was a part of should defiantly be reviewed.
What gets me is they can go after Bill Cosby but this lady is immune from prosecution. When is the FBI going to come and tear the Centralia PD and the Lewis Countys file cabinets apart. The whole community knows theres something wrong with this county. What gets me is the local pool. Why was is shut down in the first place? If taxes are being payed then why wasnt it kept in working order. It would be nice to see some city officials behind bars where they belong.
All cases she was involved with should be overturned.
She isnt the only person who lies in court.look at the lewis county sherriff dept. They are not for the home owner they are for the criminals…
Shes a busy body that likes to keep her nose into everyones business. She should step down from all work that contains people and thier lives. Shes a fraud.
That makes me mad,I was in fresh start she had acess to my records. Does she realy have cancer. My daughter had cancer and was sick after chemo.why ist she.
Shame on Tony for what she did.
Kudos to Jonathan for bringing it to light and making everyone in the court system aware of her fraudulent claims. Yes, it should have been researched sooner, but once he heard about it he made it public as soon as possible. That’s about as good as you can get under the circumstances.
Criminals working for criminals. She must of gotten her degree online. This reminds me of the siruation where Centralia Pd made their own medical marijuana cards and raided that pot shop on Tower Ave when marijuana was being sold just on the other side of the county line. Welcome to Mars home of the Rouge Kangaroo’s. O’rourke now has his name along Buzzards at their Legal office in Centralia. Conflict of intetest but hey this is Sintralia who cares right.?
Oops, was this corruption not supposed to come to light?
What gets me is that she testified in more than 60 cases over two decades (according to The Chronicle) and apparently not one person in the prosecutor’s office ever did so much as a Google search to confirm her claimed background. Why was there no due diligence in vetting a witness who’s testified in so many of their cases?
Ms. Nelson may indeed be a dishonest person but the LCPO deserves at least some blame for not making sure she was who she SAID she was, especially since she testified so often. Reagan’s comment about Gorbachev still stands true: “Trust, but verify.”
Wait a minute…you can’t lie in court? Has the Centralia PD been notified of this new development?
You would think if the county is using somebody as an “expert” witness they might actually want to check their credentials instead of just believing said person. They’ve used snitches in the past without checking into their background and reliability as well. Afterall, its possible that somebody who thinks its OK to gain somebody’s trust and then stab them in the back to get themselves out of trouble might not be a the most honest individual.
Speaking of dishonesty, I’d really like to see evidence of the 3 million dollars of drugs that JNET claims they have taken off the streets. It would actually be great PR for them if they could back it up. Maybe on one of the slower news days you could do a write up that lists the busts that ended up amounting to the $3,000,000 of drugs seized. Rather than just take their word for it when they are boasting about it like they have on KOMO News or in The Chronicle how about doing some fact checking? I think that would be an interesting article. What can it hurt?
I don’t see what the problem is. She worked for a kangaroo court. If you think that she’s the only ‘witness’ the prosecution has used that has lied, then you’re a dummy. I would say that 75% of conviction out of Lewis County are based solely on the false testimony of a criminal so they can escape charges and avoid jail.
I’m surprised the Lewis County Court isn’t giving her a medal. She hasn’t done anything different than everybody else there has been doing for decades. She was just trying to fit in.
Chances are, she would have been fine, but she must have stepped on someone’s toes and this is the price she has to pay. Watching the prosecutor act all surprised with fake concern is comical.
She always talked a good game but never followed through. She was just kind of ineffective , also I have had clients who said she was not helpful at all when they had a emergency and needed help from the White Pass Coalition. I always got the idea she really liked the limelight a bit more then the work to get there.
You can say that she represented and helped victims over the years. However, to be considered an “expert witness” in court at some point you have to provide your credentials for the judge to hear and decide if you qualify as an expert.
This means that at some point she lied under oath as to her nursing and college degrees. At any time during a court proceeding if the jury determines a witness has lied about one thing they can totally disregard the entire testimony.
Meyer is absolutely correct in notifying all parties she testified against and the courts involved.
The statute of limitations for perjury should be when they found out she lied not when she actually did.
She deserves it all. She’s put our family in a HORRIBLE situation!!! She’s made girls say and forced them on the stand. SHAME on her. There’s nothing worse than a liar!