MADISON, WIS. (AP) - An expert witness who misrepresented his credentials during a high-profile Wisconsin homicide trial will not be charged with perjury, a special prosecutor said Wednesday.
Assistant Attorney General Paul Barnett said he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Saami Shaibani committed perjury at the 2002 trial of Douglas Plude.
Prosecutors had called Shaibani, a self-described expert in “injury mechanism analysis,” to bolster their case that Plude drowned his wife in the toilet of their northern Wisconsin home in 1999. Plude had claimed his wife, Genell, committed suicide and drowned when her lungs filled up with fluid.
Shaibani falsely told jurors that he was a clinical associate professor at Temple University who taught doctors and surgeons there about injuries. The Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out Plude’s homicide conviction last year after concluding that Shaibani lied about his relationship with the Philadelphia-based school.
The Vilas County district attorney asked the Wisconsin Department of Justice to review whether Shaibani should be charged with perjury. Barnett said that although Shaibani’s testimony about being a Temple professor “appears objectively false,” it would be difficult to prove that he knew he was lying.
Shaibani had an unpaid courtesy appointment with Temple’s physics department from 1995 to 1998 and may have mistakenly believed his appointment was extended, Barnett wrote.
Shaibani continued to use his Temple title until 2003, when he learned the school had disavowed any relationship with him, Barnett wrote. That discovery came during a homicide trial in North Carolina, where the judge threw out Shaibani’s testimony as a result. Plude later challenged his conviction.
During Plude’s appeal, Department of Justice lawyers had argued that Shaibani’s false testimony was harmless and Plude would have been convicted had jurors known about it. Barnett said that earlier position would make it difficult to prove that his testimony was material to the case, which is required in perjury cases.
Barnett also noted that courts in Idaho, Washington, D.C., and South Dakota have declined to throw out convictions despite Shaibani’s questionable testimony.
Shaibani, whose last known address was in Lynchburg, Va., could not be reached for comment. Barnett did not interview him during the investigation, which was based on publicly available documents, DOJ spokesman Bill Cosh said. He said he did not believe Shaibani had a lawyer.
Vilas County prosecutors plan to retry Plude this year _ using a different expert witness.
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