Accused in murder trial can be seen but not heard in jailhouse videos | The Star
By
Rosie DiMannoStar ColumnistMon., Feb. 10, 2020
''A cell, a cot, a metal basin and a toilet.
Most people will never see the inside of a holding cell, fortunately.
What a jury saw on Monday morning was a seemingly endless montage of silent videotape of Kalen Schlatter in custody at 13 Division.
Schlatter sitting, Schlatter standing, Schlatter lying down, Schlatter removing his jacket and using it as a pillow. Schlatter covering himself with a blanket. Schlatter thrice getting on his knees, curiously, to urinate into the bowl.
But crucially — which seemed to be the point of this voyeuristic exercise — Schlatter clearly speaking to someone who can’t be seen, at times gesticulating animatedly. That ongoing conversation, the court has heard, was with an undercover police officer in the next cell, and a second undercover police officer in a third cell further down: UC1 and UC2.
The three men aren’t visible to each other but they can talk easily enough, which they did from 4:10 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2018, just after the cell door was clanged shut on Schlatter by a pair of booking officers.
Twenty video clips lasting between one and eight minutes were shown to the jurors Monday. Nothing much happens in them. But while there’s ample footage indicating exchanges between the arrestee and the cops, no audio apparently exists. Nobody has yet explained the why of that.''
''In his evidence under direct questioning from the prosecution, UC1 drew a picture of an exceedingly chatty Schlatter, at first drawn into discussion about board and card games, in particular Magic: The Gathering. Then segueing, without much prompting, into boastfulness about his alleged prowess with women — claiming he’d had sex with more than 40, sometimes in twosomes and foursomes, and he was still only 21 years old. He frequented gay bars because random straight girls could always be found there. And he posed nude for an art class, adding he wasn’t shy about being seen naked because he was “big” — as in well-endowed.''