Ex-Coast agent & Hancock officer used fake DNA results. MS Supreme Court dismisses appeal
The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel’s ruling that a former federal agent and longtime Mississippi law enforcement officer “committed fraud” by “creating, procuring, and submitting” a fraudulent DNA test in a child support case to deny fathering his girlfriend’s child.
In October, the higher court dismissed the appeal of Schloegel’s January 2024 ruling that former Homeland Security Investigations supervisory agent and narcotics commander Benjamin Marcus Taylor filed.
In the dismissal order, the court notes that Taylor failed to file a legal brief explaining why the decision should be reversed.
In the initial paperwork, Taylor claimed his appeal was based on the spoliation of evidence, suggesting that his former girlfriend and mother of the child had intentionally destroyed, hid, altered, or withheld evidence in the legal proceeding.
In addition, he suggested the evidence didn’t support the ruling.
Judge Schloegel issued the judgment after a two-day trial in the case involving a child Taylor had with his longtime girlfriend, Branissa Stroud. Taylor, now divorced, was married when he fathered the child.
”Taylor’s conduct in procuring and filing the fake DNA report was an unconscionable plan or scheme which (was) designed to improperly influence the court in its decision,” Schloegel said in her January ruling.
The judge reviewed 40 exhibits and heard testimony from Taylor, Stroud and others before ruling.
At trial, Stroud’s attorney, Michael Holleman, successfully argued for the judge to sanction Taylor by ordering him to pay all court costs and attorney fees in the child support case.
In her order imposing sanctions, the judge applauded Holleman for his work on the case, saying, “This litigation was novel and difficult in that it sought to prove essentially criminal wrongdoing by a high-ranking federal law enforcement officer.”
After the appellate ruling, Holleman called Taylor’s appeal “frivolous” and asked the high court to sanction Taylor with additional attorney’s fees and double the costs of the appellate process. That ruling is pending.
Holleman described the appeal as a “continuation of that fraud” that Taylor had already committed in court.
“Taylor began a scheme to commit fraud on the Chancery Court, on DHS, and on his infant child by creating and filing a fake DNA genetic test report purporting to show this was not (the child’s) father,” Holleman said in the new filing asking for the sanctions.
“The evidence demonstrated clearly and convincingly that Taylor created a fake DNA test report” and had it submitted to a court of law, Holleman said.
Taylor, he argued, continued to perpetuate the fraud when he repeatedly lied under oath to “avoid responsibility for his fraud and to shift blame” to the child’s mother.
A second criminal investigation
Despite Judge Schloegel’s findings, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation’s original independent investigation into the criminal allegations against Taylor did not result in any criminal action against Taylor.
Retired MBI agent Shelby Smith conducted the first independent investigation.
The Sun Herald listened to Smith’s recorded interview with Holleman and Stroud during the first independent investigation that resulted in no action against Taylor. During that conversation, Smith talked about how he attended police training with Taylor’s father and watched Ben Taylor grow up as a child. Smith said he had known both father and son since 1994.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said he didn’t know about the MBI agent’s connection to Taylor at the time of the first independent investigation.
After Schloegel’s ruling, Tindell opened a second independent investigation and appointed a new MBI investigator without connections to Taylor or his family.
The Sun Herald called Tindell this week to get an update on the second criminal investigation.
“It is my understanding that MBI has completed its investigation and is working with the attorney general’s office on the next steps,” Tindell said. “The case has not yet gone before a grand jury.”
‘A sham’ investigation
Holleman said he has little faith at this point that Taylor will face criminal charges despite his actions.
“The first MBI investigation was a sham, in my opinion,” Holleman said. “When the new investigation began after Chancellor ... Schloegel’s findings were publicized, I was contacted by MBI Investigator Amanda Schonewitz, who was not part of the original MBI investigation. She wanted to interview Ms. Stroud.
“I offered my client’s cooperation conditioned on the MBI first obtaining the sealed 27-page Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Final Judgment on Sanctions, the hearing transcripts, and the exhibits. I did not want to put my client through another interview with an investigator who was neither informed nor serious about the truth. That was on January 29, 2024.”
Holleman said he has not heard from the MBI investigator since that call.
In addition, he said Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Smith called him earlier this year regarding a similar criminal investigation.
“I sent him the unsealed records, and I requested that he obtain the sealed records and judgment before I would allow an interview with Ms. Stroud,” Holleman said. “This was months ago, and I have not heard from Mr. Stewart since.
“There may very well be a state and/or federal investigation underway,” Holleman added.
The Sun Herald started investigating the allegations of wrongdoing against Taylor when they first surfaced, conducting interviews, attending court hearings, and reviewing records, pictures, and videos of Stroud and Taylor’s interactions.
After the Sun Herald reported on the alleged wrongdoing, Taylor was abruptly relieved of his duties in Hancock County, and a second criminal investigation was started.
DA’s office alerts authorities
After Schloegel entered her ruling, the district attorney’s office for Harrison, Hancock, and Stone counties alerted all police chiefs and sheriffs in that district, the attorney’s general office, and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety of the findings as a part of a Brady disclosure.
The Sun Herald requested and obtained a copy of the Jan. 17, 2024, letter in which the prosecutor’s office disclosed the judge’s findings to sheriffs and local police chiefs.
In the Brady disclosure, the DA’s Office noted specific findings by Schloegel as listed below:
- That Taylor “procured or created a false DNA parentage test certificate.”
- That Taylor “caused his (then) attorney to file the fraudulent certificate with the Chancery Court with the intention to set aside a valid order of the court.”
- That Taylor “knowingly gave false sworn testimony in discovery responses,” and
- That Taylor “intentionally and knowingly testified to false material facts in his testimony throughout this proceeding in Chancery Court.”
“The court record reflects that Ben Taylor has submitted false documents and made false statements under oath in this civil court proceeding in Hancock Chancery Court,” the document says.
This story was originally published October 21, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
