A Washington D.C. watchdog group has sued the U.S. Department of Justice, asking the government to release documents on a controversial former prosecutor from Kansas.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, wants documents showing the ethical misconduct of Terra Morehead, who had a 37-year career as both a state and federal prosecutor. During the 1990s, Morehead helped former Kansas City, Kansas, Detective Roger Golubski frame Lamonte McIntyre for a crime he did not commit and for which he spent 23 years in prison.
Morehead, 63, who is now retired, was disbarred by the Kansas Supreme Court in April after she voluntarily surrendered her license as part of an agreement with the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys.
CREW’s battle with the DOJ began in April, when it sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get Morehead’s records dating back to 1994 and covering any ethical violations while a federal or state prosecutor. The nonprofit, nonpartisan group also sought records of any DOJ investigations into Morehead’s conduct.
DOJ denied the request and in September. CREW then filed a civil lawsuit against the department for the records.
Nikhel Sus, a CREW attorney, said his group believes it’s important to see how DOJ handles accusations against its own prosecutors or other federal law enforcement. He called the reports of misconduct already available in public court cases “shocking.”
“Just seeing this long trail of misconduct, confirmed by multiple judges, and to have this person stay in their role is really something,” Sus said. “That’s part of the concern with this case, is that it’s so egregious and such an outlier in terms of the fact that she was allowed to stay in her position for as long as she was.”
Morehead’s conduct first came under scrutiny during the exoneration of Lamonte McIntyre, a KCK man who was 17 when he was convicted of a double homicide in 1994. During his 2017 exoneration case, Morehead’s work with former Kansas City, Kansas, Police Detective Roger Golubski came to light. She was accused of threatening to take an eyewitness's children if she failed to falsely accuse McIntyre of the killings.
McIntyre was awarded $12.5 million in 2022 by the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kansas, and Wyandotte County for the wrongful conviction.
Golubski died of an apparent suicide on December 2, just as his federal trial on civil rights violations was to start in Topeka.
Morehead moved to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas, where she became embroiled in other alleged ethical breaches and was removed from criminal cases in 2021. She was criticized in a DOJ investigation after a federal judge in 2017 threw out a defendant’s conviction on drug charges.
Morehead was also involved in a 2018 scandal in which several prosecutors were caught using recordings of phone conversations between attorneys and clients at a pretrial facility in Leavenworth.
KCUR couldn’t reach Morehead for comment. The DOJ didn’t return a request for comment.
