QUOTER OF THE DAY: "On March 11, 2021, a year to the day after Lally was convicted, Judge Hatty vacated the convictions and granted him a new trial. “This Court finds that the prosecuting attorney improperly influenced the testimony of the lead detective in providing a response…The court further finds that the testimony of the lead detective that no conversation between himself and the prosecuting attorney took place was false. The prosecuting attorney knew that statement was false.” Judge Hatty said that Maas had not provided meaningful disclosure of evidence, including the jail phone call. The judge criticized Maas for improperly attacking the defense attorneys, said she had improperly attempted to bolster her own image, and attempted to influence witnesses. “This involved non-verbal cues and indirect verbal statements, such as head nods and veiled threats of perjury,” the judge ruled. The judge said Maas had violated a court order prohibiting the prosecution from referring to M.C. as a victim instead of a complainant. “This court finds that these statements and this conduct to be improper and unjustified attempts to prejudice the jury,” the judge said. Lally was released on bond that day."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Sizemore said, “Last Wednesday, after we broke, Ms. Livingston and I were in the lawyer’s lounge. The TV was on. Your court was being broadcast and we heard Ms. Maas tell him what to say when I asked him that question. I’ve got a recording of it.” He asked that the jury be sent out and that he be allowed to question Thompson more outside the presence of the jury. “And he might need a lawyer,” Sizemore declared. “Ms. Maas?” Judge Lally (Sic) said. “Judge, I’m going to leave it up to you.” “All right,” Judge Hatty said. And everyone returned to the courtroom. The jury was brought back in. During further questioning, Thompson said he recalled the courtroom conversation with Maas about the clothing. He admitted that he told Maas that he remembered talking about the clothing, but didn’t remember what was decided. Sizemore asked, “[L]ast Wednesday when you were talking with Ms. Maas, she did tell you–you guys discussed the answer to that…one question, that very specific question that you were anticipating I was going to ask. You guys did discuss that, how to handle that question, right?” “Correct,” Thompson said. “And during that conversation, she said that for you–suggesting how you handle it–“ Sizemore began. Maas interrupted. “Judge, I’m going to object. Counsel knows and I know that again, I did not tell the witness how to answer a question and his suggestion is inappropriate.” Asked to give a basis for the objection, Maas said, “He’s suggesting facts not in evidence.” “Well,” Sizemore said. “I want to be very clear with the Court. I don’t think Ms. Maas has done anything inappropriate. Okay. So I’m not suggesting that.” Sizemore said he was trying to give Thompson an “opportunity to explain himself.” Thompson subsequently said that he and Maas had made a joint decision to not send Lally’s clothes to the lab.
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "On March 11, 2020, following closing arguments to the jury, Lally was convicted of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct causing personal injury, one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct causing injury and one count of assault with intent of sexual penetration. Prior to sentencing, Thomas Kizer joined the defense and subsequently filed a motion seeking to overturn the verdict based on prosecutorial misconduct. The motion said that Maas had coached witnesses, prompted witnesses on the stand, withheld evidence, and suborned perjury. The motion said that Livingston had recorded the conversation between Maas and Thompson by holding up her cell phone to the television in the lawyer’s lounge. When Thompson said he couldn’t recall the conversation about Lally’s clothes, Maas told him to “just say that we discussed and based on his client’s statements, we felt we have enough evidence without it.” Maas then said that when Thompson gave that answer, Sizemore “will gasp” and that Maas would laugh."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "In August 2020, Judge Hatty ordered a hearing on the motion. During the hearing, Sizemore and Livingston testified about hearing Mass instruct Thompson how to testify. They testified that when they first confronted Maas with the video, Maas said, “You know, Rolland (Sizemore), this is eavesdropping. This is a felony.” Sizemore admitted that when he said at the trial that he didn’t think Maas had done anything inappropriate, he was not being truthful."
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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "The prosecution appealed, but the Michigan Appellate Court refused to hear the case. The Michigan Supreme Court also declined to hear the case. Back in the trial court, all of the judges in Livingston County recused themselves, and the case was assigned to Genesee County Judge Khary Hanible. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office took over the prosecution of the case. On July 7, 2025, Lally went to trial a second time, represented by Michael Manley and Sara Coaster. On July 16, 2025, the jury acquitted Lally of all charges."
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GIST: "On the evening of Thursday, October 4, 2018, 20-year-old Zachary Lally was arrested at the Oak Pointe Country Club in Brighton, Michigan. Lally, an employee of the club who had spent the afternoon golfing with an acquaintance named Scott McSweeney, was handcuffed in the club parking lot after employees reported that he was severely intoxicated, had taken a swing at a female employee and smashed his hand on the wall of the snack hut located near the 16th hole of the Championship Course.
Accounts of what happened during the hours leading up to his arrest would change over time, but two months later, Lally was charged with sexually assaulting 17-year-old M.C. She worked in the snack hut.
In March 2020, Lally went to trial in Livingston County Circuit Court. The prosecutor, Pamela Maas, told the jury in her opening statement that Lally was at the snack hut when he and M.C. left to look for a deer. But instead of looking for a deer, Lally forced M.C. out of the cart near some pine trees and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, M.C. returned to the snack hut where she began closing up for the day, and, Maas declared, Lally entered the hut, lowered his pants and attempted to assault M.C. again.
Defense attorneys Rolland Sizemore and Katherine Livingston contended that no sexual assault occurred and that Lally only was “an absolutely obliterated drunk.”
M.C. testified that she was a senior at Brighton High School and came to work at about 3 p.m. on that Thursday after school let out. She said she was in the snack hut when Lally and McSweeney showed up. She said it was the second time the pair had stopped at the hut. McSweeney would later testify that all three of them drank a shot of tequila to toast McSweeney’s father, who had died a few weeks earlier. She denied having a shot of tequila.
M.C. said that they were facing her when she said she saw a deer on the course. Lally suggested they investigate, so she got into Lally’s golf cart and drove toward where she saw the deer. McSweeney did not go with them.
M.C. said that as they got near a group of pine trees, Lally tried to kiss her. When she refused, she said he pulled her out of the cart into the trees, pulled down her yoga pants and sexually assaulted her vaginally and anally with his penis and his finger.
“At one point, he had gotten a little bit closer to my face and I opened my eyes and I said, ‘Just please stop,’” M.C. testified. “And I felt like it almost took him aback because hadn’t really been as close…to my face this much before…In that second, I kind of jumped and got back on the golf cart and drove away.” She said he did not ejaculate.
She said that when she left him, Lally was lying on the ground talking incoherently. “He was saying things that just made no sense,” she testified. “He said, ‘I was like here to do this. I have to do this…You’re leaving me out here to die.’”
She said she began cleaning up the snack hut and packing up to head to the clubhouse when she noticed Lally’s cell phone on the counter. McSweeney was gone.
“I remember it was towards the end of my shift,” M.C. testified. “I started wiping down the hot dog thing, putting away the rest of things that had been like out on display…checking the last of the inventory the person would need for the next day.”
Maas asked, “These things had just happened under the pine tree. And you came back to the shack and you’re thinking about cleaning up?”
“I just wanted to go home and I thought if I finished cleaning up, I could just…go home faster,” M.C. said. “I didn’t want to be there much longer.”
She said she “started to worry that he would just kind of wander towards, like, who knows where on this big golf course. And he was someone I knew beforehand, and I don’t know, I just, I felt wrong leaving him out there. He’d yelled all these things that he was going to be left out to die and I was worried there was something wrong with him.”
M.C. said she went back looking for him. She said he was in a different spot and “he hadn’t fully done up his pants all the way and he was just laying on a hill with his arms and legs spread open...with his head like to the sky.”
She said she tried to grab him and take him back to the snack hut, but then went back to the hut. I thought maybe someone could come and get him because he wasn’t in a state to drive obviously. He couldn’t even stand on his own.”
M.C. said that she saw a notice of a missed call on Lally’s phone, so she tapped it and it went to McSweeney. McSweeney lived just minutes away in the country club subdivision, so he drove to a cul de sac next to the course and walked to the snack hut.
M.C. said she didn’t tell McSweeney what happened. “I was embarrassed. I was worried that he would think it was my fault,” M.C. testified. “I just didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to go…to leave work that day.”
She said she told McSweeney to “stay here with [Lally] for a little bit. I am going to keep cleaning up.” She said that Lally vomited outside the snack hut and then came inside the hut. She said McSweeney had “disappeared.” Lally refused her demand to leave the hut. “[H]e couldn’t really stand on his own,” she said. “He would kind of lean up on things. Eventually, he found a stool to sit on and I said to him, ‘Don’t move from that spot. I’m almost done.’”
She said Lally said, “I don’t know how you’re turning this down. It’s ridiculous for you to be turning this down. People would pay good money to have this from me.”
At that point, she said he started undoing his pants and came up behind her with his penis exposed. She said that Lally said, “You know you want this. You know you want me. It would be crazy for you to not want this.”
M.C. said she started yelling at him to get away from her. About that time a group of four golfers came by. “I heard someone go, hey, is everything all right in here?” M.C. said. She said she stepped out of the hut. Two of the golfers pulled Lally out of the hut and M.C. locked the door. She said she then drove away in a golf cart, accompanied by one of the golfers, heading toward the clubhouse. As she left, M.C said she saw Lally “punch the door to get back inside the snack shack.”
When she got to the clubhouse, M.C. was met by her manager, Jill Schafer, who said members had called and “said they…saw someone giving the girl who was working at the snack shack a hard time. Was that you? And I said, ‘Yes,’ and I just started crying and crying.”
M.C. said Schafer ushered her into a room that was used as a coat room and for storage. Schafer left and Jessica LaValley, another employee, came in. When LaValley asked what happened, M.C. said she kept sobbing and then said, “I said he wouldn’t stop. I didn’t say specifically what he wouldn’t stop. I just said he wouldn’t stop.”
Her mother was summoned. Police and paramedics were called to address what appeared to be a sprained wrist. “I don’t know how my wrist became sprained,” she testified. “I don’t really remember when I couldn’t move it any more until I kind of sat there and I kind of looked down and was trying to move it…is when I first noticed.”
She said she went to a hospital in Ann Arbor where her clothing was preserved as evidence and a rape kit was taken.
During her testimony, M.C. conceded that she had given various accounts of what happened. At one point, she said she saw the deer first. At another point, she said Lally saw the deer first.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Sizemore pointed out that M.C. first said she had driven the cart back to the snack hut, leaving Lally lying on the ground. She later said that she and McSweeney drove a cart out and retrieved Lally. And she later said that she drove out alone and tried to get Lally into the cart by herself.
She admitted that during her first interview with a police officer, Livingston County sheriff’s police officer Chad Sell, she said that Lally had pulled her yoga pants down to her knees, but that she managed to get away before being raped. She admitted that her mother was present during the interview and had asked if there was going to be a rape kit taken. When Sell replied that it was only done when there was penetration, M.C.’s mother said there had been penetration. This was the first such reference, Sizemore noted.
The prosecution played a video of Brighton Police Detective Greg Thompson questioning Lally the morning after Lally’s arrest. At that time, Lally believed he was being charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol. When Thompson finally revealed that he was under investigation for a sexual assault, Lally was shocked. He denied repeatedly that he sexually assaulted M.C.
Schafer testified that she received a call that an employee was intoxicated and after she hung up, M.C. came in. Lally entered the clubhouse soon after. She said he looked intoxicated and his hand needed medical attention. LaValley, who was in charge of food and beverage at the country club, testified that she found Lally on the floor outside Schafer’s office. LaValley said she and Schafer “tried to wake Zach up. I said, Jill, you need to call 911. Zach awoke. He seemed disarrayed. He seemed like he wasn’t himself. So he went to leave out the back door and I tried to stop him.”
LaValley testified, “I still at this point was not aware of…the extent of the accusations, and so I tried to prevent him from leaving for his own safety. I didn’t want him getting in his vehicle to drive away…[T]hat is when he turned around and…swung at me. He missed. And he went running. And then that’s when the cops showed up.”
LaValley said M.C. “never directly stated to me…that he attempted to sexually assault her.” Asked what words M.C. used, LaValley said, “He attempted to assault her.”
Brighton Police Sgt. Christopher Parks, who was a resource officer at Brighton High School, testified that M.C. arrived late to a morning meeting at the school the next day. His testimony contradicted M.C.’s testimony that she had slept through several alarms that morning and did not arrive until after lunch.
Meri Trajovski, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), testified that she found some scratches on M.C.’s back. M.C. said she had been laying on pine cones, Trajovski said.
Trajovski also said that M.C. had two lacerations and one tear on the posterior fourchette, located at the bottom of her vulva. She said these were “consistent with the history of the sexual assault.” There was no injury to M.C.’s anus, she said.
Trajovski said she took swabs from M.C.’s vagina, anus, mouth, and left wrist. She also saved a piece of toilet paper that M.C. had put in her underwear because she had been bleeding. She said that at the end of the examination, M.C. declined prophylaxis for HIV and contraception and accepted the prophylaxis for sexually transmitted infections.
During cross-examination, Trajovski said it was “possible” that the tears could have occurred during consensual sex. She conceded that she found no other trauma and she did not find any bleeding.
Defense attorney Livingston asked, “Can you tell me with any degree of certainty that those tears were the result of forced penetration during a sexual assault?”
“My findings are consistent with my patient’s history,” Trajovski said. “In my experience of 14 years as a sexual assault nurse examiner, those injuries are consistent with a sexual assault.”
During redirection examination, Maas asked, “[A] patient could have experienced a very forceful sexual assault, and not show signs of injury, is that correct?”
“That’s correct,” Trajovski said.
Tara Cramer, a DNA analyst for the Michigan State Police forensic laboratory, testified that she received M.C.’s underwear and the rape kit, which included the swabs and the toilet paper. She said a presumptive test on the underwear and toilet paper was positive for the presence of seminal fluid.
No male DNA was found on the underwear, Cramer said. When Maas asked what that meant, Cramer said, “It just means there might not be DNA left from a male. It could be the time elapsed might not have happened or been long enough. There’s different circumstances that could lead to not having male DNA present on underwear.”
Cramer admitted that there have been occasions where vaginal fluid “can also react with our testing as well, so it may not necessarily indicate and be a conclusive determination of seminal fluid. So it’s just indicating that there could be seminal fluid. There is no confirmatory.”
Cramer said possible male DNA was detected on the toilet paper, but it was insufficient for DNA testing.
Cramer said all of the swabs were “inconclusive” for the presence of male DNA due to the limited amount of DNA detected. “So basically, we can’t really say if there was or was not male DNA present,” Cramer testified.
“So,” Maas asked. “There might have been some but not enough to say one way or another?”
“Possibly, yes,” Cramer said.
During cross-examination, Cramer said it was “possible” that skin cells could be transferred during penetration. She also testified that in April 2019, she had reached out to Detective Thompson, who said that he wanted the lab to test Lally’s clothing to determine if M.C.’s DNA was present and that he would reach out to Maas about doing so. However, Cramer said, Lally’s clothing was never sent to the lab.
Eddison Charles Millington II, one of the foursome of golfers who came to the snack shack after hearing yelling, testified that M.C. was outside the hut, and that she said she couldn’t get Lally out of the hut. Millington said he went inside and saw Lally “rooting around in the back area…where they kind of store alcohol, beverages, and he clearly was kind of searching around for some beverages.”
Millington said he and one of his friends persuaded Lally to come out of the snack hut. M.C. locked it up and left. At that point, Lally punched the door. “I assumed he broke his hand,” Millington said. “It looked…deformed.”
Millington said his friend approached Lally, who took a swing at him and brushed his friend’s arm, then took off on his golf cart.
During cross-examination, Millington was asked about the condition of Lally’s clothing and whether anything looked out of place or disheveled at all.
“[H]e just looked like he was playing golf,” Millington said. He said he did not see Lally as “being any more or less disheveled than he would be any other day of the week, so, no.”
“I think if I saw his pants were undone, I would probably recall,” Millington said.
“Did you have any inkling…that there had been allegations of a sexual assault,” Sizemore asked.
“I knew nothing of it,” Millington said. “[M]y impression was that we were…dealing with a violent intoxicated young man.”
“She never said to you, that man just raped me. I need help?” Sizemore asked.
“She did not say that,” Millington said.
“She didn’t say that man just assaulted me or any other kinds of words that led you to believe that he had done anything directly to her physically,” Sizemore asked.
“Correct,” Millington said.
McSweeney, who was 23 at the time of the incident, testified that he was golfing by himself and happened upon Lally as he was finishing the third hole and Lally was waiting to tee off at the fourth hole. McSweeney said he knew Lally’s father and recognized Lally, though they were not friends. Lally suggested they pair up because the pace of play was slow.
At that point, Lally was sober, he said, although there were several unopened cans of Budweiser Light in the back of his cart.
During the course of their play, McSweeney said he had four beers and a shot of tequila. He estimated that Lally had 10 to 12 beers. McSweeney said they stopped at the snack hut after the fifth hole, the ninth hole, and the 12 th hole. At that time, McSweeney said he and Lally and M.C. each had a shot of tequila to toast McSweeney’s father who had died the previous month. And he said they stopped there once more, after the 15 th hole.
By that time, Lally was having difficulty. “I mean, he was still able to stand up, but he really wasn’t coherent,” McSweeney said. ”[H]e was having a hard time hitting a golf ball.”
McSweeney testified that there was no conversation about a deer. Rather, he said, Lally had lost his cell phone, so M.C. and Lally went to look for it. At that point, McSweeney said he decided to go to his home, about three tenths of a mile away, instead of completing the round.
He said he was just turning onto his street when M.C. called him from Lally’s phone. “She said Zach’s really messed up. Could you come help?” he testified. He said that just past his home was the cul de sac that was close to the snack hut.
He said that when he arrived, M.C. was closing up the hut. Lally was kneeling in the grass, spitting, as if he were about to vomit.
He said he told M.C. he would take care of Lally. “And she said, no, it’s fine. I got him. And I said, actually three times, I said no, like, don’t worry about it. Do your thing. I’ll take him back. I live right here. I’ve got nothing going on,” McSweeney said.
“And she said, no, I got him,” he said. “After the third time, I said, okay, I’ll wait five or 10 minutes…And if you need me, I’ll be right here. And about five, 10 minutes passed by; I left.”
“So,” prosecutor Maas asked, “Is it fair to say, Mr. McSweeney, you had no idea what happened between Zach and [M.C.]?”
“No clue,” McSweeney said. “Zero clue. [M.C.] was acting fairly normal. She said she had it handled.”
Livingston County Sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Sell testified that when he arrived, he spoke to LaValley and Schafer. By that time, Deputy Samuel Brooks had handcuffed Lally and put him in a police car, advising Lally that he was being arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Sell said he then talked to M.C. to determine whether a crime had been committed.
Sell said that M.C. recounted that Lally had attempted to remove her clothing, but she managed to get away. Sell said M.C. said she did not want to press charges.
Not long after, M.C.’s mother arrived at the clubhouse. Sell said he was explaining possible charges when M.C.’s mother said M.C. needed to go to the hospital for rape kit. “And I was taken aback by that,” Sell said. “And I explained to mom…that it only occurred when…penetration occurred.” M.C.’s mother then said there had been penetration. Sell said he asked M.C. if Lally had penetrated her and M.C. said yes.
At that point, Sell said he summoned Detective Thompson and notified Deputy Brooks that Lally was being investigated for a sexual assault.
Brooks testified that he found an empty 12-pack carton for Budweiser Light beer in the back of Lally’s car. Eventually, Brooks took Lally to the hospital where Lally’s hand was bandaged, and then Lally was taken to the Livingston County Jail. Lally’s clothing was confiscated there.
On Monday, March 9, 2020, Detective Thompson testified that after interviewing M.C. at the clubhouse, he and M.C. and LaValley and Schafer took two golf carts out to the snack hut in an attempt to locate where M.C. said she had been raped. He said that he found Lally’s car key on the floor of the hut. He said they walked around the grounds, but M.C. was unable to identify the location of the attack.
He said M.C. was crying and growing frustrated. “We would stop near a group of pine trees. She would get out. She would search. She would just walk in circles.”
They returned to the clubhouse and Thompson arranged for M.C. to go to a hospital for a rape kit and physical examination.
During his testimony, the defense learned that Thompson had provided the prosecution, over the weekend, records of a phone call that Lally made to his mother from the jail. Because of the late disclosure, Judge Michael Hatty barred the prosecution from presenting the evidence.
On the following day, when the trial resumed, Sizemore cross-examined Livingston about his interview of Lally the day after he was arrested.
“Isn’t it true that based on your training and experience that you could tell from his body language and verbal answers to your questions, he had no idea…that you were investigating a sexual assault?” Sizemore asked.
“That’s not true,” Thompson replied.
“Okay. Why?” Sizemore asked.
“Because I had told his mother the night before,” Thompson said.
“And do you have an idea whether his mother told him?” Sizemore asked. “Do you have any evidence that his mother told him that [M.C.] says he raped her?”
“She didn’t mention it by name,” Thompson said.
Sizemore asked Thompson several times about the decision made not to send Lally’s clothing to the crime laboratory for examination.
Sizemore noted that Deputy Brooks had seen what appeared to be pine sap on Lally’s pants. “Do you disagree with that?” Sizemore asked.
“I couldn’t differentiate between what each stain was,” Thompson said.
“Then why didn’t you send it away so they could tell you what was on those pants?” Sizemore asked.
“Like I said,” Thompson replied. “We had a conversation. We decided not to do it.”
“Did anybody tell you to say that when I asked you about the clothes specifically,” Sizemore asked.
“No,” Thompson said.
“Did you ever have a conversation with anybody about what to do or what to say about the fact that you didn’t send the clothes in?” Sizemore asked.
“No,” Thompson said.
“You’ve never talked to anybody about that particular issue?” Sizemore asked.
“Any conversation that I had with Ms. Maas was she kept reminding me, tell the truth, don’t lie and that was it,” Thompson said.
“You’re telling me that last Wednesday, after court, in this room, she did not tell you to say, based on the evidence we have collected so far, we didn’t feel it was necessary to send those clothes in? Is that what you’re testifying to?”
“Do you see all the cameras in this [court]room?” Sizemore asked.
“I do,” Thompson said.
“Do you know that they broadcast to the lawyer’s lounge in this building?”
“I do,” Thompson said.
At that point, Sizemore, joined by Livingston, requested a private conference with Judge Hatty and Haas. Sizemore said, “Last Wednesday, after we broke, Ms. Livingston and I were in the lawyer’s lounge. The TV was on. Your court was being broadcast and we heard Ms. Maas tell him what to say when I asked him that question. I’ve got a recording of it.” He asked that the jury be sent out and that he be allowed to question Thompson more outside the presence of the jury.
“And he might need a lawyer,” Sizemore declared.
“Ms. Maas?” Judge Lally said.
“Judge, I’m going to leave it up to you.”
“All right,” Judge Hatty said. And everyone returned to the courtroom. The jury was brought back in.
During further questioning, Thompson said he recalled the courtroom conversation with Maas about the clothing. He admitted that he told Maas that he remembered talking about the clothing, but didn’t remember what was decided.
Sizemore asked, “[L]ast Wednesday when you were talking with Ms. Maas, she did tell you–you guys discussed the answer to that…one question, that very specific question that you were anticipating I was going to ask. You guys did discuss that, how to handle that question, right?”
“Correct,” Thompson said.
“And during that conversation, she said that for you–suggesting how you handle it–“ Sizemore began.
Maas interrupted. “Judge, I’m going to object. Counsel knows and I know that again, I did not tell the witness how to answer a question and his suggestion is inappropriate.”
Asked to give a basis for the objection, Maas said, “He’s suggesting facts not in evidence.”
“Well,” Sizemore said. “I want to be very clear with the Court. I don’t think Ms. Maas has done anything inappropriate. Okay. So I’m not suggesting that.” Sizemore said he was trying to give Thompson an “opportunity to explain himself.”
Thompson subsequently said that he and Maas had made a joint decision to not send Lally’s clothes to the lab.
On March 11, 2020, following closing arguments to the jury, Lally was convicted of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct causing personal injury, one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct causing injury and one count of assault with intent of sexual penetration.
Prior to sentencing, Thomas Kizer joined the defense and subsequently filed a motion seeking to overturn the verdict based on prosecutorial misconduct. The motion said that Maas had coached witnesses, prompted witnesses on the stand, withheld evidence, and suborned perjury.
The motion said that Livingston had recorded the conversation between Maas and Thompson by holding up her cell phone to the television in the lawyer’s lounge. When Thompson said he couldn’t recall the conversation about Lally’s clothes, Maas told him to “just say that we discussed and based on his client’s statements, we felt we have enough evidence without it.” Maas then said that when Thompson gave that answer, Sizemore “will gasp” and that Maas would laugh.
The motion said that the recordings of Lally’s conversation with his mother from the jail, which had not been disclosed until the middle of the trial, would have contradicted Thompson’s testimony suggesting that Lally’s mother had informed him of the sexual assault allegation. The subject was not broached at all during that conversation, the motion said.
The motion said that Maas falsely argued during her closing argument that seminal fluid and male DNA had been found, when the evidence was that there was a “possibility” such evidence had been discovered. The motion said that Maas improperly denigrated the defense attorneys, made improper comments during the trial, including saying “Let the perjury begin” when McSweeney took the witness stand.
The motion said the trial defense attorneys had provided an inadequate legal defense by failing to seek a mistrial based on Maas’s conversation with Thompson.
In August 2020, Judge Hatty ordered a hearing on the motion. During the hearing, Sizemore and Livingston testified about hearing Mass instruct Thompson how to testify. They testified that when they first confronted Maas with the video, Maas said, “You know, Rolland (Sizemore), this is eavesdropping. This is a felony.”
Sizemore admitted that when he said at the trial that he didn’t think Maas had done anything inappropriate, he was not being truthful.
Maas denied all of the allegations. “What I can say unequivocally is that I was in no way trying to influence the officer,” she testified. She denied threatening the defense with being charged with felony eavesdropping.
On March 11, 2021, a year to the day after Lally was convicted, Judge Hatty vacated the convictions and granted him a new trial. “This Court finds that the prosecuting attorney improperly influenced the testimony of the lead detective in providing a response…The court further finds that the testimony of the lead detective that no conversation between himself and the prosecuting attorney took place was false. The prosecuting attorney knew that statement was false.”
Judge Hatty said that Maas had not provided meaningful disclosure of evidence, including the jail phone call. The judge criticized Maas for improperly attacking the defense attorneys, said she had improperly attempted to bolster her own image, and attempted to influence witnesses. “This involved non-verbal cues and indirect verbal statements, such as head nods and veiled threats of perjury,” the judge ruled.
On the evening of Thursday, October 4, 2018, 20-year-old Zachary Lally was arrested at the Oak Pointe Country Club in Brighton, Michigan. Lally, an employee of the club who had spent the afternoon golfing with an acquaintance named Scott McSweeney, was handcuffed in the club parking lot after employees reported that he was severely intoxicated, had taken a swing at a female employee and smashed his hand on the wall of the snack hut located near the 16th hole of the Championship Course.
Accounts of what happened during the hours leading up to his arrest would change over time, but two months later, Lally was charged with sexually assaulting 17-year-old M.C. She worked in the snack hut.
In March 2020, Lally went to trial in Livingston County Circuit Court. The prosecutor, Pamela Maas, told the jury in her opening statement that Lally was at the snack hut when he and M.C. left to look for a deer. But instead of looking for a deer, Lally forced M.C. out of the cart near some pine trees and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, M.C. returned to the snack hut where she began closing up for the day, and, Maas declared, Lally entered the hut, lowered his pants and attempted to assault M.C. again.
Defense attorneys Rolland Sizemore and Katherine Livingston contended that no sexual assault occurred and that Lally only was “an absolutely obliterated drunk.”
M.C. testified that she was a senior at Brighton High School and came to work at about 3 p.m. on that Thursday after school let out. She said she was in the snack hut when Lally and McSweeney showed up. She said it was the second time the pair had stopped at the hut. McSweeney would later testify that all three of them drank a shot of tequila to toast McSweeney’s father, who had died a few weeks earlier. She denied having a shot of tequila.
M.C. said that they were facing her when she said she saw a deer on the course. Lally suggested they investigate, so she got into Lally’s golf cart and drove toward where she saw the deer. McSweeney did not go with them.
M.C. said that as they got near a group of pine trees, Lally tried to kiss her. When she refused, she said he pulled her out of the cart into the trees, pulled down her yoga pants and sexually assaulted her vaginally and anally with his penis and his finger.
“At one point, he had gotten a little bit closer to my face and I opened my eyes and I said, ‘Just please stop,’” M.C. testified. “And I felt like it almost took him aback because hadn’t really been as close…to my face this much before…In that second, I kind of jumped and got back on the golf cart and drove away.” She said he did not ejaculate.
She said that when she left him, Lally was lying on the ground talking incoherently. “He was saying things that just made no sense,” she testified. “He said, ‘I was like here to do this. I have to do this…You’re leaving me out here to die.’”
She said she began cleaning up the snack hut and packing up to head to the clubhouse when she noticed Lally’s cell phone on the counter. McSweeney was gone.
“I remember it was towards the end of my shift,” M.C. testified. “I started wiping down the hot dog thing, putting away the rest of things that had been like out on display…checking the last of the inventory the person would need for the next day.”
Maas asked, “These things had just happened under the pine tree. And you came back to the shack and you’re thinking about cleaning up?”
“I just wanted to go home and I thought if I finished cleaning up, I could just…go home faster,” M.C. said. “I didn’t want to be there much longer.”
She said she “started to worry that he would just kind of wander towards, like, who knows where on this big golf course. And he was someone I knew beforehand, and I don’t know, I just, I felt wrong leaving him out there. He’d yelled all these things that he was going to be left out to die and I was worried there was something wrong with him.”
M.C. said she went back looking for him. She said he was in a different spot and “he hadn’t fully done up his pants all the way and he was just laying on a hill with his arms and legs spread open...with his head like to the sky.”
She said she tried to grab him and take him back to the snack hut, but then went back to the hut. I thought maybe someone could come and get him because he wasn’t in a state to drive obviously. He couldn’t even stand on his own.”
M.C. said that she saw a notice of a missed call on Lally’s phone, so she tapped it and it went to McSweeney. McSweeney lived just minutes away in the country club subdivision, so he drove to a cul de sac next to the course and walked to the snack hut.
M.C. said she didn’t tell McSweeney what happened. “I was embarrassed. I was worried that he would think it was my fault,” M.C. testified. “I just didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to go…to leave work that day.”
She said she told McSweeney to “stay here with [Lally] for a little bit. I am going to keep cleaning up.” She said that Lally vomited outside the snack hut and then came inside the hut. She said McSweeney had “disappeared.” Lally refused her demand to leave the hut. “[H]e couldn’t really stand on his own,” she said. “He would kind of lean up on things. Eventually, he found a stool to sit on and I said to him, ‘Don’t move from that spot. I’m almost done.’”
She said Lally said, “I don’t know how you’re turning this down. It’s ridiculous for you to be turning this down. People would pay good money to have this from me.”
At that point, she said he started undoing his pants and came up behind her with his penis exposed. She said that Lally said, “You know you want this. You know you want me. It would be crazy for you to not want this.”
M.C. said she started yelling at him to get away from her. About that time a group of four golfers came by. “I heard someone go, hey, is everything all right in here?” M.C. said. She said she stepped out of the hut. Two of the golfers pulled Lally out of the hut and M.C. locked the door. She said she then drove away in a golf cart, accompanied by one of the golfers, heading toward the clubhouse. As she left, M.C said she saw Lally “punch the door to get back inside the snack shack.”
When she got to the clubhouse, M.C. was met by her manager, Jill Schafer, who said members had called and “said they…saw someone giving the girl who was working at the snack shack a hard time. Was that you? And I said, ‘Yes,’ and I just started crying and crying.”
M.C. said Schafer ushered her into a room that was used as a coat room and for storage. Schafer left and Jessica LaValley, another employee, came in. When LaValley asked what happened, M.C. said she kept sobbing and then said, “I said he wouldn’t stop. I didn’t say specifically what he wouldn’t stop. I just said he wouldn’t stop.”
Her mother was summoned. Police and paramedics were called to address what appeared to be a sprained wrist. “I don’t know how my wrist became sprained,” she testified. “I don’t really remember when I couldn’t move it any more until I kind of sat there and I kind of looked down and was trying to move it…is when I first noticed.”
She said she went to a hospital in Ann Arbor where her clothing was preserved as evidence and a rape kit was taken.
During her testimony, M.C. conceded that she had given various accounts of what happened. At one point, she said she saw the deer first. At another point, she said Lally saw the deer first.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Sizemore pointed out that M.C. first said she had driven the cart back to the snack hut, leaving Lally lying on the ground. She later said that she and McSweeney drove a cart out and retrieved Lally. And she later said that she drove out alone and tried to get Lally into the cart by herself.
She admitted that during her first interview with a police officer, Livingston County sheriff’s police officer Chad Sell, she said that Lally had pulled her yoga pants down to her knees, but that she managed to get away before being raped. She admitted that her mother was present during the interview and had asked if there was going to be a rape kit taken. When Sell replied that it was only done when there was penetration, M.C.’s mother said there had been penetration. This was the first such reference, Sizemore noted.
The prosecution played a video of Brighton Police Detective Greg Thompson questioning Lally the morning after Lally’s arrest. At that time, Lally believed he was being charged with being a minor in possession of alcohol. When Thompson finally revealed that he was under investigation for a sexual assault, Lally was shocked. He denied repeatedly that he sexually assaulted M.C.
Schafer testified that she received a call that an employee was intoxicated and after she hung up, M.C. came in. Lally entered the clubhouse soon after. She said he looked intoxicated and his hand needed medical attention. LaValley, who was in charge of food and beverage at the country club, testified that she found Lally on the floor outside Schafer’s office. LaValley said she and Schafer “tried to wake Zach up. I said, Jill, you need to call 911. Zach awoke. He seemed disarrayed. He seemed like he wasn’t himself. So he went to leave out the back door and I tried to stop him.”
LaValley testified, “I still at this point was not aware of…the extent of the accusations, and so I tried to prevent him from leaving for his own safety. I didn’t want him getting in his vehicle to drive away…[T]hat is when he turned around and…swung at me. He missed. And he went running. And then that’s when the cops showed up.”
LaValley said M.C. “never directly stated to me…that he attempted to sexually assault her.” Asked what words M.C. used, LaValley said, “He attempted to assault her.”
Brighton Police Sgt. Christopher Parks, who was a resource officer at Brighton High School, testified that M.C. arrived late to a morning meeting at the school the next day. His testimony contradicted M.C.’s testimony that she had slept through several alarms that morning and did not arrive until after lunch.
Meri Trajovski, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), testified that she found some scratches on M.C.’s back. M.C. said she had been laying on pine cones, Trajovski said.
Trajovski also said that M.C. had two lacerations and one tear on the posterior fourchette, located at the bottom of her vulva. She said these were “consistent with the history of the sexual assault.” There was no injury to M.C.’s anus, she said.
Trajovski said she took swabs from M.C.’s vagina, anus, mouth, and left wrist. She also saved a piece of toilet paper that M.C. had put in her underwear because she had been bleeding. She said that at the end of the examination, M.C. declined prophylaxis for HIV and contraception and accepted the prophylaxis for sexually transmitted infections.
During cross-examination, Trajovski said it was “possible” that the tears could have occurred during consensual sex. She conceded that she found no other trauma and she did not find any bleeding.
Defense attorney Livingston asked, “Can you tell me with any degree of certainty that those tears were the result of forced penetration during a sexual assault?”
“My findings are consistent with my patient’s history,” Trajovski said. “In my experience of 14 years as a sexual assault nurse examiner, those injuries are consistent with a sexual assault.”
During redirection examination, Maas asked, “[A] patient could have experienced a very forceful sexual assault, and not show signs of injury, is that correct?”
“That’s correct,” Trajovski said.
Tara Cramer, a DNA analyst for the Michigan State Police forensic laboratory, testified that she received M.C.’s underwear and the rape kit, which included the swabs and the toilet paper. She said a presumptive test on the underwear and toilet paper was positive for the presence of seminal fluid.
No male DNA was found on the underwear, Cramer said. When Maas asked what that meant, Cramer said, “It just means there might not be DNA left from a male. It could be the time elapsed might not have happened or been long enough. There’s different circumstances that could lead to not having male DNA present on underwear.”
Cramer admitted that there have been occasions where vaginal fluid “can also react with our testing as well, so it may not necessarily indicate and be a conclusive determination of seminal fluid. So it’s just indicating that there could be seminal fluid. There is no confirmatory.”
Cramer said possible male DNA was detected on the toilet paper, but it was insufficient for DNA testing.
Cramer said all of the swabs were “inconclusive” for the presence of male DNA due to the limited amount of DNA detected. “So basically, we can’t really say if there was or was not male DNA present,” Cramer testified.
“So,” Maas asked. “There might have been some but not enough to say one way or another?”
“Possibly, yes,” Cramer said.
During cross-examination, Cramer said it was “possible” that skin cells could be transferred during penetration. She also testified that in April 2019, she had reached out to Detective Thompson, who said that he wanted the lab to test Lally’s clothing to determine if M.C.’s DNA was present and that he would reach out to Maas about doing so. However, Cramer said, Lally’s clothing was never sent to the lab.
Eddison Charles Millington II, one of the foursome of golfers who came to the snack shack after hearing yelling, testified that M.C. was outside the hut, and that she said she couldn’t get Lally out of the hut. Millington said he went inside and saw Lally “rooting around in the back area…where they kind of store alcohol, beverages, and he clearly was kind of searching around for some beverages.”
Millington said he and one of his friends persuaded Lally to come out of the snack hut. M.C. locked it up and left. At that point, Lally punched the door. “I assumed he broke his hand,” Millington said. “It looked…deformed.”
Millington said his friend approached Lally, who took a swing at him and brushed his friend’s arm, then took off on his golf cart.
During cross-examination, Millington was asked about the condition of Lally’s clothing and whether anything looked out of place or disheveled at all.
“[H]e just looked like he was playing golf,” Millington said. He said he did not see Lally as “being any more or less disheveled than he would be any other day of the week, so, no.”
“I think if I saw his pants were undone, I would probably recall,” Millington said.
“Did you have any inkling…that there had been allegations of a sexual assault,” Sizemore asked.
“I knew nothing of it,” Millington said. “[M]y impression was that we were…dealing with a violent intoxicated young man.”
“She never said to you, that man just raped me. I need help?” Sizemore asked.
“She did not say that,” Millington said.
“She didn’t say that man just assaulted me or any other kinds of words that led you to believe that he had done anything directly to her physically,” Sizemore asked.
“Correct,” Millington said.
McSweeney, who was 23 at the time of the incident, testified that he was golfing by himself and happened upon Lally as he was finishing the third hole and Lally was waiting to tee off at the fourth hole. McSweeney said he knew Lally’s father and recognized Lally, though they were not friends. Lally suggested they pair up because the pace of play was slow.
At that point, Lally was sober, he said, although there were several unopened cans of Budweiser Light in the back of his cart.
During the course of their play, McSweeney said he had four beers and a shot of tequila. He estimated that Lally had 10 to 12 beers. McSweeney said they stopped at the snack hut after the fifth hole, the ninth hole, and the 12 th hole. At that time, McSweeney said he and Lally and M.C. each had a shot of tequila to toast McSweeney’s father who had died the previous month. And he said they stopped there once more, after the 15 th hole.
By that time, Lally was having difficulty. “I mean, he was still able to stand up, but he really wasn’t coherent,” McSweeney said. ”[H]e was having a hard time hitting a golf ball.”
McSweeney testified that there was no conversation about a deer. Rather, he said, Lally had lost his cell phone, so M.C. and Lally went to look for it. At that point, McSweeney said he decided to go to his home, about three tenths of a mile away, instead of completing the round.
He said he was just turning onto his street when M.C. called him from Lally’s phone. “She said Zach’s really messed up. Could you come help?” he testified. He said that just past his home was the cul de sac that was close to the snack hut.
He said that when he arrived, M.C. was closing up the hut. Lally was kneeling in the grass, spitting, as if he were about to vomit.
He said he told M.C. he would take care of Lally. “And she said, no, it’s fine. I got him. And I said, actually three times, I said no, like, don’t worry about it. Do your thing. I’ll take him back. I live right here. I’ve got nothing going on,” McSweeney said.
“And she said, no, I got him,” he said. “After the third time, I said, okay, I’ll wait five or 10 minutes…And if you need me, I’ll be right here. And about five, 10 minutes passed by; I left.”
“So,” prosecutor Maas asked, “Is it fair to say, Mr. McSweeney, you had no idea what happened between Zach and [M.C.]?”
“No clue,” McSweeney said. “Zero clue. [M.C.] was acting fairly normal. She said she had it handled.”
Livingston County Sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Sell testified that when he arrived, he spoke to LaValley and Schafer. By that time, Deputy Samuel Brooks had handcuffed Lally and put him in a police car, advising Lally that he was being arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Sell said he then talked to M.C. to determine whether a crime had been committed.
Sell said that M.C. recounted that Lally had attempted to remove her clothing, but she managed to get away. Sell said M.C. said she did not want to press charges.
Not long after, M.C.’s mother arrived at the clubhouse. Sell said he was explaining possible charges when M.C.’s mother said M.C. needed to go to the hospital for rape kit. “And I was taken aback by that,” Sell said. “And I explained to mom…that it only occurred when…penetration occurred.” M.C.’s mother then said there had been penetration. Sell said he asked M.C. if Lally had penetrated her and M.C. said yes.
At that point, Sell said he summoned Detective Thompson and notified Deputy Brooks that Lally was being investigated for a sexual assault.
Brooks testified that he found an empty 12-pack carton for Budweiser Light beer in the back of Lally’s car. Eventually, Brooks took Lally to the hospital where Lally’s hand was bandaged, and then Lally was taken to the Livingston County Jail. Lally’s clothing was confiscated there.
On Monday, March 9, 2020, Detective Thompson testified that after interviewing M.C. at the clubhouse, he and M.C. and LaValley and Schafer took two golf carts out to the snack hut in an attempt to locate where M.C. said she had been raped. He said that he found Lally’s car key on the floor of the hut. He said they walked around the grounds, but M.C. was unable to identify the location of the attack.
He said M.C. was crying and growing frustrated. “We would stop near a group of pine trees. She would get out. She would search. She would just walk in circles.”
They returned to the clubhouse and Thompson arranged for M.C. to go to a hospital for a rape kit and physical examination.
During his testimony, the defense learned that Thompson had provided the prosecution, over the weekend, records of a phone call that Lally made to his mother from the jail. Because of the late disclosure, Judge Michael Hatty barred the prosecution from presenting the evidence.
On the following day, when the trial resumed, Sizemore cross-examined Livingston about his interview of Lally the day after he was arrested.
“Isn’t it true that based on your training and experience that you could tell from his body language and verbal answers to your questions, he had no idea…that you were investigating a sexual assault?” Sizemore asked.
“That’s not true,” Thompson replied.
“Okay. Why?” Sizemore asked.
“Because I had told his mother the night before,” Thompson said.
“And do you have an idea whether his mother told him?” Sizemore asked. “Do you have any evidence that his mother told him that [M.C.] says he raped her?”
“She didn’t mention it by name,” Thompson said.
Sizemore asked Thompson several times about the decision made not to send Lally’s clothing to the crime laboratory for examination.
Sizemore noted that Deputy Brooks had seen what appeared to be pine sap on Lally’s pants. “Do you disagree with that?” Sizemore asked.
“I couldn’t differentiate between what each stain was,” Thompson said.
“Then why didn’t you send it away so they could tell you what was on those pants?” Sizemore asked.
“Like I said,” Thompson replied. “We had a conversation. We decided not to do it.”
“Did anybody tell you to say that when I asked you about the clothes specifically,” Sizemore asked.
“No,” Thompson said.
“Did you ever have a conversation with anybody about what to do or what to say about the fact that you didn’t send the clothes in?” Sizemore asked.
“No,” Thompson said.
“You’ve never talked to anybody about that particular issue?” Sizemore asked.
“Any conversation that I had with Ms. Maas was she kept reminding me, tell the truth, don’t lie and that was it,” Thompson said.
“You’re telling me that last Wednesday, after court, in this room, she did not tell you to say, based on the evidence we have collected so far, we didn’t feel it was necessary to send those clothes in? Is that what you’re testifying to?”
“Do you see all the cameras in this [court]room?” Sizemore asked.
“I do,” Thompson said.
“Do you know that they broadcast to the lawyer’s lounge in this building?”
“I do,” Thompson said.
At that point, Sizemore, joined by Livingston, requested a private conference with Judge Hatty and Haas. Sizemore said, “Last Wednesday, after we broke, Ms. Livingston and I were in the lawyer’s lounge. The TV was on. Your court was being broadcast and we heard Ms. Maas tell him what to say when I asked him that question. I’ve got a recording of it.” He asked that the jury be sent out and that he be allowed to question Thompson more outside the presence of the jury.
“And he might need a lawyer,” Sizemore declared.
“Ms. Maas?” Judge Lally said.
“Judge, I’m going to leave it up to you.”
“All right,” Judge Hatty said. And everyone returned to the courtroom. The jury was brought back in.
During further questioning, Thompson said he recalled the courtroom conversation with Maas about the clothing. He admitted that he told Maas that he remembered talking about the clothing, but didn’t remember what was decided.
Sizemore asked, “[L]ast Wednesday when you were talking with Ms. Maas, she did tell you–you guys discussed the answer to that…one question, that very specific question that you were anticipating I was going to ask. You guys did discuss that, how to handle that question, right?”
“Correct,” Thompson said.
“And during that conversation, she said that for you–suggesting how you handle it–“ Sizemore began.
Maas interrupted. “Judge, I’m going to object. Counsel knows and I know that again, I did not tell the witness how to answer a question and his suggestion is inappropriate.”
Asked to give a basis for the objection, Maas said, “He’s suggesting facts not in evidence.”
“Well,” Sizemore said. “I want to be very clear with the Court. I don’t think Ms. Maas has done anything inappropriate. Okay. So I’m not suggesting that.” Sizemore said he was trying to give Thompson an “opportunity to explain himself.”
Thompson subsequently said that he and Maas had made a joint decision to not send Lally’s clothes to the lab.
On March 11, 2020, following closing arguments to the jury, Lally was convicted of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct causing personal injury, one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct causing injury and one count of assault with intent of sexual penetration.
Prior to sentencing, Thomas Kizer joined the defense and subsequently filed a motion seeking to overturn the verdict based on prosecutorial misconduct. The motion said that Maas had coached witnesses, prompted witnesses on the stand, withheld evidence, and suborned perjury.
The motion said that Livingston had recorded the conversation between Maas and Thompson by holding up her cell phone to the television in the lawyer’s lounge. When Thompson said he couldn’t recall the conversation about Lally’s clothes, Maas told him to “just say that we discussed and based on his client’s statements, we felt we have enough evidence without it.” Maas then said that when Thompson gave that answer, Sizemore “will gasp” and that Maas would laugh.
The motion said that the recordings of Lally’s conversation with his mother from the jail, which had not been disclosed until the middle of the trial, would have contradicted Thompson’s testimony suggesting that Lally’s mother had informed him of the sexual assault allegation. The subject was not broached at all during that conversation, the motion said.
The motion said that Maas falsely argued during her closing argument that seminal fluid and male DNA had been found, when the evidence was that there was a “possibility” such evidence had been discovered. The motion said that Maas improperly denigrated the defense attorneys, made improper comments during the trial, including saying “Let the perjury begin” when McSweeney took the witness stand.
The motion said the trial defense attorneys had provided an inadequate legal defense by failing to seek a mistrial based on Maas’s conversation with Thompson.
In August 2020, Judge Hatty ordered a hearing on the motion. During the hearing, Sizemore and Livingston testified about hearing Mass instruct Thompson how to testify. They testified that when they first confronted Maas with the video, Maas said, “You know, Rolland (Sizemore), this is eavesdropping. This is a felony.”
Sizemore admitted that when he said at the trial that he didn’t think Maas had done anything inappropriate, he was not being truthful.
Maas denied all of the allegations. “What I can say unequivocally is that I was in no way trying to influence the officer,” she testified. She denied threatening the defense with being charged with felony eavesdropping.
On March 11, 2021, a year to the day after Lally was convicted, Judge Hatty vacated the convictions and granted him a new trial. “This Court finds that the prosecuting attorney improperly influenced the testimony of the lead detective in providing a response…The court further finds that the testimony of the lead detective that no conversation between himself and the prosecuting attorney took place was false. The prosecuting attorney knew that statement was false.”
Judge Hatty said that Maas had not provided meaningful disclosure of evidence, including the jail phone call. The judge criticized Maas for improperly attacking the defense attorneys, said she had improperly attempted to bolster her own image, and attempted to influence witnesses. “This involved non-verbal cues and indirect verbal statements, such as head nods and veiled threats of perjury,” the judge ruled.
The judge said Maas had violated a court order prohibiting the prosecution from referring to M.C. as a victim instead of a complainant. “This court finds that these statements and this conduct to be improper and unjustified attempts to prejudice the jury,” the judge said.
Lally was released on bond that day.
The prosecution appealed, but the Michigan Appellate Court refused to hear the case. The Michigan Supreme Court also declined to hear the case.
Back in the trial court, all of the judges in Livingston County recused themselves, and the case was assigned to Genesee County Judge Khary Hanible. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office took over the prosecution of the case.
On July 7, 2025, Lally went to trial a second time, represented by Michael Manley and Sara Coaster. On July 16, 2025, the jury acquitted Lally of all charges.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-12-2025
Last Update Date: 08-12-2025 judge said Maas had violated a court order prohibiting the prosecution from referring to M.C. as a victim instead of a complainant. “This court finds that these statements and this conduct to be improper and unjustified attempts to prejudice the jury,” the judge said.
Lally was released on bond that day.
The prosecution appealed, but the Michigan Appellate Court refused to hear the case. The Michigan Supreme Court also declined to hear the case.
Back in the trial court, all of the judges in Livingston County recused themselves, and the case was assigned to Genesee County Judge Khary Hanible. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office took over the prosecution of the case.
On July 7, 2025, Lally went to trial a second time, represented by Michael Manley and Sara Coaster. On July 16, 2025, the jury acquitted Lally of all charges.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-12-2025
Last Update Date: 08-12-2025
