Karl FieldsSpecial prosecutors unveiled several text messages Wednesday that sparked a Chattanooga police detective’s resignation in 2015 for hiding evidence that could have exonerated an alleged rapist.
Karl Fields, 44, never submitted to the district attorney’s office cellphone videos of James Leon Works Jr. having seemingly consensual sex with another woman in August 2014 for a reason, prosecutor Alyson Kennedy told jurors during the second day of his trial in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
It was because Fields, a married man, had been making sexual advances to the alleged victim since she reported on June 1, 2014, that Works held her in a hotel room against her will and raped her. It was because the woman had suggested they end things. And it was because Fields could repair and “further” the relationship if he hid evidence that would help her attacker, prosecutors said.
Fields was fired in March 2015, indicted one year later, and now faces one count of official misconduct and one count of tampering with evidence.
“Sorry for the impersonal call, supervisor is in my office,” he wrote on July 9, 2014. He had received judicial permission a day earlier to search through Works’ cellphone for rape evidence.