FLINT, MI - Tears welling in his eyes, former basketball star Mateen Cleaves stood in the lobby of the Genesee District Court on Monday, Dec. 5 next to his wife and lawyer, fielding questions from the media.
"I'm just happy, man, that I can walk away from this a free man," the former NBA player and Flint-native said.
But as Cleaves, surrounded by friends and supporters, celebrated the win at the Halo Burger near the courthouse, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office -- acting on behalf of the People of the State of Michigan -- already announced plans to appeal the case.
The case against Cleaves' alleged criminal sexual conduct may not be over, yet.
'FAR FROM TYPICAL'
Accused of sexually assaulting a woman at the Knights Inn motel in Mundy Township after a charity golf outing on Sept. 15, 2015, Cleaves, 39, was arraigned in March on multiple felony charges, including counts of unlawful imprisonment and criminal sexual conduct. Until the charges against him were dismissed, he was free on a $150,000 personal recognizance bond.
Spanning five full days in court -- drawn out over the course of a month due to a death in the defense's family -- the preliminary hearing was far from typical, but then again, so were a lot of things when it came to the Cleaves case, said Peter Henning, a professor of law at Wayne State University.
"Dismissal after prelim is definitely uncommon, but it's not unique, either," Henning said. "But most cases are very mundane, even criminal sexual conduct cases. This is the kind of drama we would more typically see in a high-profile murder case."
Most cases, said Henning, get past the preliminary exam stage because the standard is low. In fact, Henning said many defendants waive the prelim stage of legal processing.
"But in a high-profile case like this, especially one where it's not even clear that a crime took place, the defense lawyer might want to test the government's case, and that's what he successfully did," said Henning, noting that Cleaves' "deep financial pockets" could afford a more aggressive legal approach at the preliminary level than most defendants.
The point of a preliminary exam, he said, is not to prove whether a defendant is guilty with proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- that is what a jury trial is for. Instead, a preliminary exam is held simply for both sides to lay out their arguments and evidence for a judge, so that she can decide if there is enough evidence in the case for "probable cause," or whether "a reasonable juror could find proof of reasonable doubt."
But, said Henning, it is important to keep in mind that the appeal means the case is not over, citing the 2015 criminal sexual conduct case involving ex-Detroit Tigers Pitcher Evan Reed. Wayne County District Judge Kenneth King dismissed the case in August 2014 during the preliminary hearing, citing the victim's lack of credibility. However, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy successfully appealed the decision and the charges were reinstated in 2015. Reed accepted a plea agreement and was required to complete community service and pay restitution.
But the contentious Cleaves case was an unusual one long before the preliminary processions began:
The decision on whether to bring charges switched hands from David Leyton's Genesee County office to Kym Worthy in Wayne County after Leyton recused himself, citing a conflict of interest because his family had a relationship with a potential witness.
Before charges were brought, Wayne County took the unusual step of confirming Cleaves was under investigation -- a move that set up a contentious relationship between the defense and prosecutors.
Throughout the trial, Cleaves' defense, Frank J. Manley, was critical of Worthy's office and her prosecutors, saying: "They don't want justice, they want a scalp," in his closing arguments.
After Cleaves was arraigned in Genesee County a day earlier than expected by Wayne County, Worthy blasted what she called a "back door arraignment."
The ensuing weeks and months brought more unusual developments.
- In May, Genesee District Judge M. Cathy Dowd ordered MLive and The Flint Journal not to publish details from a search warrant affidavit or else she would begin contempt proceedings against the publication. The order, however, was overturned by a circuit judge after attorneys for MLive and The Flint Journal appealed Dowd's order.
- The sides sparred over surveillance video, with Dowd deciding the public would not be allowed to see the video.
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- It came out in pre-trial that
Fireworks in the pre-trial courtroom set the stage for the contentious confrontations between Judge Dowd and Wayne County prosecutor Lisa Lindsey, which eventually led to Lindsey's near-removal from the court on the first day of exam.
And that was all before witnesses took the stand.
THE WITNESSES
Over the course of five days, the court heard testimony from five witnesses.
The first was from Steven Klein, a clerk at the gas station where it is claimed Cleaves and his alleged victim stopped before traveling to the Knights Inn. He said Cleaves and the woman had entered his gas station and the woman asked to use the store's phone, which she took to the bathroom.
The second, Coleen Dowdall, a resident of the Inn, testified she witnessed Cleaves and a woman in various stages of undress shouting outside her room twice on the night of the alleged assault.
Dowdall testified she saw Cleaves twice pull the screaming and crying woman from outside the motel back into a room. After the second time she saw the pair -- this time directly outside her own motel room door, the woman on her hands and knees wearing a bra and underwear while a naked Cleaves stood over her, grabbing her stomach -- Dowdall placed a call to 911, which was played in court.
The call said the woman asked for help, but Dowdall didn't want to let her into her room and have Cleaves follow her in.
However, Dowdall said the woman was found outside her room a third time later that night, crying hysterically. This time, she let the woman in because Cleaves was not with her.
"She said she had sex, she said just laid there and took it. She said she couldn't fight him off so she just laid there," Dowdall told the court on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
Dowdall also testified Cleaves got in his car to leave once the police were called.
The third witness was Michelle Most, a sexual assault nurse examiner who examined the alleged victim at Genesys Regional Medical Center the day of the reported incident.
Most read the notes from her report of the exam, which detailed what the woman allegedly told her in the office. The prosecution also showed Most's injury report, illustrating scratches and scrapes on the woman's arms, legs and bottom.
Most testified the alleged victim was "apprehensive" toward Brian Ogle, the Mundy Township police officer who came to Genesys to collect the forensic samples for investigation.
Cleaves' attorney, Frank J. Manley, challenged Most's report and the nurse's credibility, and pushed to establish that the interactions between Cleaves and the woman were consensual.
He also questioned Most if she was biased, stating she filed a formal complaint against Ogle -- a surprise to the prosecution.
THE WOMAN
The fourth witness was the alleged victim. Testifying that Cleaves forced himself on her on a bed in the motel, the woman told the court that although she did not desire to be in the room with Cleaves, his size hindered her escape.
MLive and The Flint Journal typically do not identify alleged victims in sexual assault cases.
"I didn't want to be there, but ... if it came to a physical issue, I was not going to win that situation," she testified, remembering the night in the motel room when she said Cleaves started kissing her.
According to the testimony, the situation moved to the motel room bed, where she said she attempted to fight Cleaves off.
"I pushed him off of me and ran out of the room," she said. "I was just trying to get away from the situation. He came out of the room, grabbed me and brought me back into the room. I was resisting."
The woman testified that although she was "concerned" about the situation when she realized Cleaves wasn't driving her to the intended destination with her friends and boyfriend, she "didn't want to appear rude" to Cleaves because he is a "big donor" at her workplace, Whaley Children's Center.
Cleaves' attorney, Frank J. Manley, questioned the woman's credibility and partiality to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, citing a line from her LinkedIn profile which allegedly said that the woman, a social worker, once was on a Wayne County sexual assault advocacy task force. The line has since been removed.
According to the woman's testimony -- much of which echoed her statements previously read in court by nurse Most -- she met Cleaves for the first time at the charity event, and Cleaves joined the woman and other Whaley Center employees later that night at Sweetwater Bar in Grand Blanc.
Leaving the bar -- where she said Cleaves bought her two lemon drop vodka shots -- the woman left in Cleaves' car, where she says the intent was to return with her fellow employees and Cleaves to the golf course.
Her phone battery dead, the woman testified she asked Cleaves for a car charger on the way to the golf course, but the former basketball star said he did not and did not have a phone for her to call on. The woman said Cleaves drove the two to a combined gas station liquor store, where she borrowed the store's phone from a clerk, placing two calls from the store bathroom to her boyfriend. Before the phone stopped ringing, the woman said Cleaves opened the bathroom door and told her it was "time to go."
Her next memory was from inside the Knights Inn motel room where she was sitting and talking with Cleaves, and took one sip from a drink that Cleaves made her.
Inside the room, she said she "wanted to leave." Cleaves kissed her and the situation moved to the bed where she alleges he began to touch her over her underwear.
After she ran out of the room the first time and Cleaves brought her back, she says the man pushed her underwear to the side and began to sexually assault her.
The woman says she pushed Cleaves off a second time and ran outside again, this time seeing a woman watching through a motel window -- Coleen Dowdall -- to whom she mouthed "help me."
Her next memory, she says, is from inside Dowdall's motel room, where she remembers being very upset and in a "panicked state." It's there where she said she remembers Dowdall calling the police, her mother and boyfriend.
After calling for an immediate dismissal of all charges, Manley pressed the woman's use of "psychotropic" drugs, focusing on Most's testimony in which the nurse read that the alleged victim noted that she had a subscription for hydrocodone -- an opioid.
The woman, appearing confused, testified that while she had a prescription for the opioid, she had not filled the prescription nor taken the drug.
Manley also showed security camera footage of the alleged victim sitting in Cleaves' car at the motel, "fixing her hair," but the woman continued to testify she did not remember arriving at the motel.
THE COP
The fifth witness, Mundy Twp. Sgt. Todd Johnson responded to the 911 call the night of the reported incident and took a statement from the woman. Later, in cross-examination, he testified he made his report five days after the fact and "completely from memory."
Johnson testified on Dec. 2 that the intoxicated but "clear" woman in the Knights Inn motel room told him that she had not been sexually assaulted, and had removed her own clothes to "mess around" with the former basketball star. He said his interaction with her was approximately 10 minutes.
"So your report that you made was entirely from memory, five days later?" Lindsey asked.
"Correct," Johnson testified.
"Did you leave out details?" Lindsey asked.
"Yes," Johnson testified.
Johnson, with 19 years' police experience, testified he chose not to report the "half dollar size" blood spot on the alleged victim's knee to the onsite paramedic, or the fact that she refused medical attention.
He testified that the woman "said she had a ride coming" to the motel, and so he left her at the Knights Inn while he drove Cleaves home.
When Johnson first arrived at the scene, he said Cleaves' truck was parked but beginning to move to drive out of the lot. Johnson turned on his lights and Cleaves complied and was "very polite," immediately exiting the car with his hands in the air. Johnson said he found no reason to arrest or detain Cleaves, even after talking with the alleged victim.
Johnson said he was disciplined for his handling of the incident, but it was later removed.
"Sometimes you have to take one for the team, right?" Manley asked.
"I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but sometimes you have to take it," Johnson said.
LOOKING FORWARD
Dowd dismissed the charges on Monday, Dec. 5, saying that although security camera footage shows a mostly-nude Cleaves pulling the scantily-clad woman back into the hotel room, "there are a number of factors that lead [her] to believe something else was going on."
Citing that the woman invited Cleaves to the bar, and that she "was not concerned enough to let her boyfriend answer the phone when it was ringing" in the gas station, Dowd said she didn't have enough probable cause to bind over the unlawful imprisonment charge.
In the case of criminal sexual conduct, Dowd said she "hadn't heard enough," based on the woman's "dancing all around the questions" and the two male sperm donors found on the woman despite her statement she hadn't had consensual sex in the past 96 hours.
Cleaves thanked his family, supporters and lawyers, saying that he's grateful Manley "fought for my life like I was his own son."
The prosecution has vowed to appeal the decision within the next 21 days.
But for the time being, after nine months, Cleaves is free.