A 22-year-old woman's charge that she gave false information in a kidnapping and aggravated domestic assault case involving her ex-boyfriend has been sent to a Hamilton County grand jury.
After multiple hearings that gave attorneys ample time to argue, General Sessions Court Judge Alex McVeagh ruled on June 20 that prosecutors showed probable cause that Kristen Pollis' ultimate account of Jan. 17 did not fully align with the physical evidence and testimony.
"Can the state prevail at trial? I'm not sure," McVeagh said while making his decision. "I think something certainly happened [that day]. Now, I don't think it's the way Ms. Pollis described."
The charge against Pollis, a Class D felony that carries two to 12 years in prison upon conviction, stems from an interaction with Michael Francis Wilson during the early morning and afternoon hours of Jan. 17. Prosecutors say Pollis introduced new allegations at Wilson's preliminary hearing on Jan. 31 and should have had more serious injuries based on her account. Her defense attorney and advocates, meanwhile, say evidence supports Pollis' version of events and that a Chattanooga investigator overscrutinized the confused, shocked statements of a recovering victim.
On the day in question, Pollis told police, her ex-boyfriend Wilson came over to her apartment around 5:30 a.m., forced her to go with him to his parent's house on Mountain Wood Lane and spent the next several hours torturing her, choking her, suffocating her with pillows, kicking her in the head, dunking her head in a toilet, body-slamming her, tackling her naked in a neighbor's front yard when she tried to escape, and dragging her up and down the stairs. At various points, Pollis said, an intoxicated Wilson urinated on her, cut himself around the chest with a box cutter and wrote a suicide note. She escaped when he eventually passed out and a nearby neighbor called police. Using Pollis' account, authorities arrested Wilson and charged him with kidnapping, aggravated domestic assault and aggravated burglary.
But the case against Wilson started to weaken, prosecutors said, when Pollis testified to some new details during Wilson's preliminary hearing in late January. Chattanooga police investigator John Barnett, who said he was later assigned to assist Mary Sullivan Moore, a private attorney and former sex crimes prosecutor who the Pollis family hired to help prosecute Wilson, began to receive other evidence.
In a search warrant affidavit in March, Barnett said he'd received Instagram messages that showed Pollis and Wilson discussing urinating on each other in December 2018 and communicating in the hours before the incident. He said he obtained a picture from Wilson's attorney, Zak Newman, that Wilson took of his chest shortly after he was booked in jail where he did not have the box-cutter scratches described by Pollis. After searching the Wilson home again in March, Barnett said he also met a neighbor who was up during the hours in question who would've had full view of Pollis' escape attempt, but the neighbor did not hear or see that. Furthermore, Pollis had a bruised rib and some skin abrasions when she should've had more significant injuries from the violence described, Barnett said.
Pollis was charged with filing false reports on March 20 while a Hamilton County grand jury, hearing testimony from law enforcement, declined to indict Wilson on any of the kidnapping and assault charges. According to court records and prosecutors, Wilson pleaded guilty to a domestic assault involving Pollis in 2017, and Pollis testified that she met him when she was 17 and characterized their relationship as him having sexual contact with other women and sometimes ignoring her.
Chad Wilson, a Chattanooga attorney who represented Pollis and is not related to Michael Wilson, said the state did not prove probable cause and had to reopen its case after the first hearing to introduce more proof.
First, he argued, Barnett did find a box cutter when he re-searched Wilson's parents' house in March. Second, attorney Wilson said, Wilson was on probation for other offenses, motivated to not leave certain marks on Pollis and had four hours to clean himself and his house before police arrived. Third, attorney Wilson said, the neighbor who didn't see Pollis' escape attempt was influenced by a family member of Michael Wilson's who came over shortly after his January arrest and mentioned exonerating Instagram messages.
Fourth, investigator Barnett originally thought Pollis sent a message around 5:30 a.m. on Jan. 17 telling Michael Wilson to come over. But it turned out, Chad Wilson said, that police had the wrong time stamps. Attorney Wilson said Pollis invited a seemingly intoxicated Wilson over around midnight. But when he responded "I'll be there when I be there," she said goodnight and never gave consent for him to arrive hours later, attorney Wilson said.
Finally, attorney Wilson said, an officer on scene on Jan. 17 pulled up Michael Wilson's shirt at the scene to confirm Pollis' account about him scratching himself with a box cutter "and verbally reported to his sergeant that it did."
If indicted, Pollis' case will proceed to Hamilton County Criminal Court and attorneys will either dismiss, settle or go to trial on her charge. She remains out on $2,000 bail and declined to comment Friday through attorney Wilson.
Contact Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.