A man who is serving a life sentence for the killing of a Baltimore Police detective is expected to be indicted Tuesday in connection with an alleged scheme to get out of prison, according to the City State's Attorney's Office.
Brandon Grimes was convicted of killing Detective Troy Chesley in 2007 and was ultimately sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Chesley died during a robbery while he was off duty, but he managed to shoot Grimes during the encounter.
In mid-October, WJZ obtained charging documents that alleged Grimes faked a ballistics report in an attempt to show that he did not commit Chesley's murder. According to prosecutors, Grimes aimed to get paid nearly $1 million for being wrongly convicted.
In 2024, he filed a petition for a writ of actual innocence with the Baltimore City Circuit Court, alleging that in 2018, the assistant state's attorney handed over pieces of "newly discovered evidence she found." Grimes claimed that the ballistic report was among the documents that she "found in a box somewhere," charging documents show.
According to court documents, Grimes further claimed that police suppressed the report.
The alleged fake report showed that Grimes was shot by the same weapon that killed Chesley, proving that he was not the killer, court documents detailed.
Prosecutors allege that Grimes used outside help and spent years creating the plan to fake the ballistics report, aiming to defraud the state out of more than $1 million.
An investigation found that the style of the report was not authentic, that property numbers did not match and that the two firearms examiners listed in the report never prepared or signed the real document, according to prosecutors.
According to charging documents, Grimes met a woman on Facebook and, during recorded calls from prison, he laid out his plan to falsify the report, telling the woman, "When I get this exoneration money, I'll make sure you don't work again."
Baltimore City State's Attorney Ivan Bates requested that Grimes be moved to a jail in Baltimore, where he is expected to face six new charges, including fabricating physical evidence and obstructing justice.