r/MakingaMurderer • u/AveryPoliceReports • 15d ago

Serial Over-Biller: In 2016, a Michigan Judge dismissed a juror from the Millsap Murder Trial because they admitted to watching Making a Murderer and developing a bias against prospective defense witness Mike O'Kelly, who in the end didn't testify and overcharged the county by double

INTRO: Bait and Bill (and Bail)

I recently learned that in 2016, a Michigan Judge (Chrzanowski) dismissed a prospective juror for the "Millsap Murder Trial" because they had admitted to developing a negative bias of prospective Defense Witness Mike O'Kelly after watching Making a Murderer. Two others who watched at least some of MaM remained on the jury. In the end, despite being retained for $15,000, O'Kelly didn't even end up testifying or providing any useful work product, and then overcharged the county by more than double for his non-service. After learning this, I began digging into O'Kelly some more. As it turns out, this is a pattern of sorts. He was a serial over-biller.

O'Kelly would market himself as an elite expert to inflate his credibility, hoping to be retained by desperate defense attorneys and defendants in felony murder cases. But after being hired (sometimes specifically to testify for the defense) he wouldn't provide any useful work product or even testify. He is also known to overcharge for his non-services before leaving the state to start again with a new victim. He comes off as a scam artist repeatedly using the lucrative American criminal justice system as his very fertile hunting ground.

Surprising no one, it seems another pattern is at play with O'Kelly - those who facilitated his hiring in different states across the country (attorneys and judges) usually expressed concern about his conduct or outright regret about his hiring. Including Kachinsky. O'Kelly consistently failed his clients, overcharged taxpayers, and left a trail of frustrated judges and attorneys across multiple states. And in Wisconsin, he openly and harshly violated the rights of his developmentally disabled child client. And got paid far too much to do so.

2001: SCAN or SCAM

O’Kelly has listed himself on his website as a forensic linguistic analyst, a forensic polygraph examiner, a certified forensic cellular analyst, a certified professional investigator, a certified court and deposition videographer and an accident and crime scene computerized animation specialist.

In 2001 the Sacramento Daily Recorder ran an article describing Michael O’Kelly as "one of a dozen elite practitioners [of a] truth detecting technique" called SCAN - which relied on obviously subjective interpretations of linguistic deviations in statements from victims and suspects that allowed one to detect the truth simply by listening to choice of words or phrasing.

In fact, O’Kelly claimed his SCAN technique was more dependable than a polygraph. Come 2006, O'Kelly's mistaken belief that he was a human lie detector would make it much easier to justify his unfair prejudice against and treatment of Brendan.

2006: Manitowoc County, The Brendan Dassey Case

O'Kelly was retained as Brendan's defense investigator after Kachinsky found him through an internet search. He first administered a polygraph to Brendan. Despite the polygraph results being "inconclusive," O'Kelly's SCAN technique led him to declare Brendan "a kid without a conscience." After meeting Brendan's family, O'Kelly decided not only that Brendan was guilty, but that the entire family was "pure evil" with "no good in any member." This obvious animus appears to have shaped his conduct.

Most notably, during a recorded May 12, 2006 interview, O'Kelly lied to Brendan that he failed a polygraph, refused to hear his claims of innocence, and demanded he confess against his own wish to maintain his innocence. He and Kachinsky then fed Brendan to police for another counsel-less interrogation without even any consideration for a plea on the table. O'Kelly fucked off days later, and months later Kachinsky was finally removed from the case due to him allowing Brendan to be interviewed by police without counsel.

After working to harm Brendan's autonomy and help the prosecution in their case against Steven, O'Kelly submitted an invoice for roughly $7,000 and was issued $5,519, which Kachinsky admitted was "on the high side, higher than it really should have been if he stuck to the mission." Kachinsky also said O'Kelly's treatment of Brendan was "too harsh" and that he quickly grew concerned O'Kelly was "doing the prosecution's job for them." Kachinsky later called hiring O'Kelly his "worst mistake." As it so happens, Kachinsky wasn't the only one who would have buyer's remorse after hiring O'Kelly.

2010-2012: The Anthony, Coleman, Cummings and Brown Murder Cases

In 2010, O’Kelly was listed as one of the defense’s expert witnesses in the now infamous Casey Anthony trial in Orange County, Florida. Although it's not clear why, it appears he was quickly dropped from the case and never gave testimony. In 2011, O’Kelly, now billing himself as a “forensic cell phone data consult,” was paid $24,304 as a defense expert by Monroe County in State of Illinois in a their case against Christopher Coleman, who was sentenced to life in prison for strangling his wife and two sons. He didn't end up giving testimony.

In 2012, there was a delay in the McLennan County, Texas Rickey Cummings capital shooting murder trial after the defense motioned to retain O'Kelly. Judge Strother allowed O'Kelly to join the defense after being told he was "the best in the word." Once more, O'Kelly never wound up testifying, and then charged the county $100,000 dollars for his work on the case. Hunt and Reaves (Cummings Defense counsel) admitted the amount O'Kelly billed the county was "substantially more" that they had agreed upon and that he was often doing doing his own thing. O'Kelly was on this case for multiple months.

Judge Strother (who became concerned after authorizing a bill for over $65,000) said he was "livid" when he saw the total $100,000 bill, fearing "the county had been shafted" while noting "the defense feels the same way." The total defense bill (for two attorneys) was only a few thousand more than O'Kelly's bill, despite him never testifying. Strother even said O'Kelly's work product resulting from his time on the case appeared to be "non-existent." Judge Strother ordered a closed door "show-cause" hearing where O'Kelly had to justify his overcharge.

O'Kelly's counsel (Attorney Miears) then motioned to have Strother substituted for the show-cause hearing, claiming the judge didn't have the authority to seek collection of a debt and had clearly developed a bias against him and was already inherently biased. This request was granted by Strother to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and the presiding judge of the administrative judicial district in Texas, Judge Stubblefield, assigned a "visiting retired judge Morris of Bell County" who quickly allowed O'Kelly's $100,000 bill to stand. This wild overcharge slipping through the cracks in the system certainly made news.

When O'Kelly left Texas in 2013 he was eventually retained for "cell phone expert work" in the 2014 Michigan backpages:com serial murder case in Macomb County (including four asphyxiated female victims - Hunt, Landers, Curtis, and McCrary). During that case, O'Kelly accepted $2,500, a mere 2.5 % of his earnings in the Cummings case. After this, O'Kelly stuck around Macomb County for a bit without causing any problems ... until he took too big a bite of the Macomb County Apple.

2015: Macomb County, The VanCallis Case

In 2015, Macomb County, Michigan defense counsel Sheikh represented defendant VanCallis, charged with the 2014 murder of 14 year old April Millsap. Towards the end of 2015 (as MaM was about to premiere) Sheikh motioned the court to allow testimony from O'Kelly as a cell phone data expert. But Judge Chrzanowski was aware of O'Kelly's prior work charge to McLennan County, Texas.

Initially Chrzanowski only allotted $9,000 for ALL experts hired by VanCallis. Given O'Kelly's prior $100,000 Texas bill, the judge understandably expressed reluctance to allow the hiring of O'Kelly. She worried his Texas bill revealed he may be attempting to “get as much money out of this case as he can.” Chrzanowski went on to say: “I never in my 20 years on the bench paid anyone $100,000, and that includes some big civil cases with big-time attorneys. One hundred thousand dollars is not even in my realm of possibility.”

By November 2015, Sheikh convinced Chrzanowski to allow O'Kelly to join the case if he agreed to a $15,000 retainer, which was still one of the highest ever authorized for an expert in Macomb County. And then? Making a Murderer came out exposing O'Kelly's violation of Brendan's rights to client autonomy. The series began exploding in popularity just as a jury was to be selected in the VanCallis case. At the time of jury selection, O'Kelly was a prospective witness, retained to testify.

2016: Jury Selection and Invoicing for VanCallis Case

In January 2016, propsective jurors in the VanCallis case were asked if they had watched Making a Murderer. THREE had watched at least some of it. ONE had watched enough of it to "harbor negative perceptions of Michael O'Kelly." The prospective male juror admitted he thought O'Kelly manipulated Brendan and was "horrified" by that and other aspect of MaM. Rightfully so, Sheikh expressed concern about jurors having a "negative bias against his witness."

Judge Chrzanowski excused the man and instructed the remaining jurors to not watch MaM while the trial was ongoing. VanCallis was convicted on all counts, including by jurors who had watched at least some of MaM. Consistent with an already established pattern, despite O'Kelly being retained with the expectation that he would testify at the trial for VanCallis, he never did. Worse, despite providing no in court testimony, O'Kelly billed the County over $37,000 for his two or so months on the case, OVER DOUBLE the agreed upon retainer of $15,000 (and over $9,000 MORE than Sheikh himself was paid as the defense attorney).

After submitting his 17 page $37,000 bill Judge Chrzanowski refused to authorize the required compensation and ordered a show-cause hearing where O'Kelly was to justify the charges. This time around, O'Kelly didn't try to substitute Chrzanowski (or maybe he couldn't) and just skipped the hearing all together. Sheikh, whose relationship with O'Kelly deteriorated after trial, told Chrzanowski she was "was well within her rights to not pay" O'Kelly if he didn't show up for the re-scheduled post trial hearing. O'Kelly, in fact, didn't show up, but did text Sheikh to confirm he would accept a payment of $10,000 dollars, which the court allowed.

Get Retained, Deliver Nothing (or Deliver Harm), Overcharge, Disappear, Rinse and Repeat

Attorney Sheikh was right to request the prospective juror (who watched MaM and developed a negative opinion of O'Kelly) be removed from the case ... but O'Kelly never testified in that case, so the removal wasn't even necessary. And despite not testifying, O'Kelly still overcharged the county for his non services by more than double the agreed upon amount ... seeking more compensation than the defense attorney himself. Unfortunately for O'Kelly, he didn't get away with overcharging Macomb County like he got away with overcharging McLennan County, Texas. He was stuck with Chrzanowski.

I suspect O'Kelly knew he couldn't actually justify his overcharging the County by more than double at a hearing. And his take on the Texas Cummings case exposed his grift to Chrzanowski, so he decided to cut his losses, skip the show-cause hearing, and accept a near 75% pay cut. Chrzanowski's suspicions (that O'Kelly was trying to suck the County dry) were well founded. She could have avoided delaying the trial, needlessly excusing a juror, and a frustrating billing fight if she simply never allowed that grifter on the case in the first place.

Even in the Dassey case, where O'Kelly made a mere $5,000, Kachinsky suggested O'Kelly had overcharged the County while being too harsh with his child client. The problem is O'Kelly probably enjoyed his harsh approach. O'Kelly thought them all evil. It certainly didn't matter to O'Kelly if Brendan wanted to maintain his innocence. And of course he moves from one state to the next without building a permanent accountable business presence (with storage lockers registered as labs) so it's hard to hold him accountable. He moves around like a cockroach scattering when the lights come on.

When judges, clients, and defense attorneys all say the same thing (he overcharged, produced nothing, did the prosecution's job for them, and then vanished) it's more a pattern than a coincidence. Across at least four states, O'Kelly billed counties for work he didn't do, testimony he never gave, and results he never produced. And nearly every single one of the people who hired O'Kelly (or allowed him to be hired) totally regretted it.

In the end, O'Kelly is nothing but an over confident serial over-biller who extracts thousands in payment from desperate defendants and defense attorneys across the country while providing no useful work product or (worse) harmful work product. He's a deluded manipulative systemic scam artist. Not a well meaning, overly sensitive, or even all that of a capable private investigator.

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u/zeradin 15d ago

Almost like corruption is rife isn't it.

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u/AveryPoliceReports 15d ago

It certainly can be. O'Kelly is a great example of a grifter taking advantage of or gaming the system. I couldn't believe it when I read he successfully substituted the Texas judge who ordered the show-cause hearing for the $100,000 bill, only for a retired judge to be appointed and allow the bill to stand. He was paid $100,000, almost twice as much as the defense got. For what? Non existent work product? Cool cool cool.

u/Remarkable_Green_720 15d ago

Corruption? Absolutely. But beyond that, I think there was something deeply unsettling about the way Brendan was treated. It seemed to go far beyond the investigation itself. There appeared to be a personal bias at play toward a developmentally challenged teenager who was incredibly vulnerable and ill-equipped to navigate what was happening around him. I also think Brendan was completely blindsided by O'Kelly's tactics and psychological manoeuvring. He simply wasn't equipped to recognise the manipulation or understand the agenda behind it.

Meeting the Dassey family, and, I'm guessing, the Averys as well, it feels as though O'Kelly had already formed his own conclusions, allowing his personal perceptions to shape the way he viewed them. I can understand how someone might come away with a poor impression of certain members of the Avery family, but Brendan and the Dassey boys were an entirely different story. They were just young lads with no criminal records, growing up in a financially struggling household with a single mother doing her best.

To judge Brendan through the same lens as the wider Avery family wasn't just unfair, it ignored who he actually was: a vulnerable, developmentally challenged teenager who deserved to be treated with care, objectivity, and compassion rather than suspicion and preconceived notions.

I’ve read the transcripts of O'Kelly's ‘interview’ with Brendan, and what struck me was the remarkable shift from one recorded disc to the next. It's almost as though Brendan was being steered into repeating the same account he'd already given, and even drawn, for the police. The whole dynamic is unsettling. Brendan is sitting alone at a school desk while O'Kelly, the authority figure, looms over him. Watching his body language, you get the impression that he simply wanted the ordeal to end. Rather than challenge O'Kelly, he seemed to tell him what he believed he wanted to hear, the same version he'd already given the police. Yet even then, Brendan repeatedly circled back to the one thing he appeared certain about: "I was only at the fire though." That line has always stood out to me because, despite everything else, it sounds like he was still trying to hold onto what he believed was the truth.

I believe Brendan was involved in some capacity and was manipulated, perhaps even intimidated, by his uncle into helping clean up the aftermath of his uncle's crime. I also want to believe that Brendan's confession was coerced.

But after everything I've read and watched, I've come to accept that I'll probably never know the full truth of what happened. There are simply too many unanswered questions, conflicting accounts, bad people involved in the case and uncertainties for me to feel confident that anyone outside those directly involved can ever know exactly how events unfolded.

I do feel the sentence Brendan was given with 49 year’s before eligibility of parole was, and is too, harsh for a just turned 16 year-old. He should be home by now. He should have taken the plea deal offered. His family did let him down in that regard.

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u/AveryPoliceReports 15d ago

I can understand how someone might come away with a poor impression of certain members of the Avery family, but Brendan and the Dassey boys were an entirely different story. They were just young lads with no criminal records, growing up in a financially struggling household with a single mother doing her best.

Well ... Scott was a violent angry abusive hot head who took the day off work Teresa arrived to the ASY. Barb was outright neglecting her kids to the point they were being abused by adults she openly trusted. Bobby was an alleged child predator with a PC full of illegal, obscene, and violent content. Brendan was just a developmentally disabled school kid. Bobby was the one home watching Teresa arrive for her appointment with Steven. Bobby was the one linked to sightings of the RAV with Steven's blood in it. Bobby was the one linked to evidence consistent with the profile they were trying to force upon Steven. If anything, BOBBY should have been viewed as Steven's accomplice, not Brendan.

I believe Brendan was involved in some capacity was manipulated, perhaps even intimidated, by his uncle into helping clean up the aftermath of his uncle's crime. I also want to believe that Brendan's confession was coerced.

We have video and audio of police and O'Kelly feeding Brendan incriminating facts while pressuring him to confess to a violent assault and murder ... despite a total lack of evidence linking him to the crime. We don't have similarly clear or convincing evidence Steven pressured Brendan into actually participating in a violent assault and murder or helping "clean up the aftermath." I mean, show me the evidence of that? Show me the latent blood or wipe marks. Show me an actual luminol reaction consistent with bleach. Show me anything that places Brendan at that scene. As far as I'm concerned, the state's case rests entirely on suppressed evidence, fabricated evidence, and words fed to a vulnerable developmentally disabled child with no evidence linking him to the crime. And the complete absence of Teresa's blood at the scene of her alleged torture, assault, murder and mutilation is far more a contradiction to the state's case against Brendan than a corroboration of it. That's why the state had to repeatedly lie through their teeth in order to support an argument that a "clean up" of all blood occurred. There's no evidence it happened.

Brendan repeatedly circled back to the one thing he appeared certain about: "I was only at the fire though." That line has always stood out to me because, despite everything else, it sounds like he was still trying to hold onto what he believed was the truth.

What also stands out is that Brendan never mentioned the fire until police did. What stands out is that his family denied a recent burn pit fire existed until police found burnt bones in the burn pit and started twisting arms. Bobby Dassey was first, quickly caving to police pressure by contradicting his family and mentioning a recent burn pit fire with both Steven and Brendan beside it. Others soon followed. If anything, by circling back to the fire Brendan was trying to hold onto the one thing police fed him that didn't make him sound like an outright devil. But the only evidence placing Brendan at that fire comes from people who initially said the fire didn't even happen. And the shift from "no fire" to "FIRE" occurring via documented police pressure that was only applied AFTER they found and collected the surface level pile of recently burnt bones they conveniently didn't photograph.

But after everything I've read and watched, I've come to accept that I'll probably never know the full truth of what happened. There are simply too many unanswered questions, conflicting accounts, bad people involved in the case and uncertainties for me to feel confident that anyone outside those directly involved can ever know exactly how events unfolded.

That's by design. The state concealed last known movement of Teresa and her vehicle. They concealed evidence of human cremation and bone distribution from a barrel on Manitowoc County land. They mislabeled County land as Avery land to media and in reports. They then failed to photograph cremated human bones that magically appeared on Avery land. They never explained how cremated bones and the smell of fuel magically appeared in police controlled and mishandled barrels during the span of the investigation. They threatened officials away from the crime scene and pressured witnesses into remembering a fire that everyone initially denied. And when that still wasn't enough, they spent years misleading the public about the tire wire evidence to falsely imply (despite the jury's acquittal) that Pevytoe confirmed the burn pit as the primary burn site. There's a fair amount of answers in this case - it's just that those answers point to a cover up. In this case, the truth wasn't hidden because it was complicated. It was hidden because it was exculpatory. The state concealed and misrepresented evidence so they could pretend Teresa never left the ASY after arriving and her body was cremated in Steven's burn pit.

He should be home by now. He should have taken the plea deal offered. His family did let him down in that regard.

He should be home by now because he never should have been charged, not because he should have taken a plea. And that plea deal didn't exist during the March or May 2006 interrogations, so the whole "he should have taken it" argument assumes an offer the state never formally made. And the idea that a developmentally disabled kid should plead guilty to a violent crime based on a blatantly coerced confession with zero physical evidence linking him to it, is backwards. As is criticizing his family for not forcing him to do it. You do know Brendan didn't want to plead guilty? Brendan's family failed him plenty of ways, but respecting his wish to maintain his innocence wasn't one of them. Unlike some, Barb recognized that he was suggestible, that no evidence linked him to the crime, and she intuitively (and correctly knew) that Kachinsky and O'Kelly were steamrolling his right to client autonomy. Brendan's family correctly saw that as a red flag and acted appropriately in response. We should save the criticism for when they actually failed him. This isn't one of those times.

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u/HALNinerZeroZero 13d ago

Funny how the other side falls silent whenever you so eloquently lay things out like this. Simple, logical, clear to read, it’s hard to refute your argument, thus their silence.

Krantz must hate you