How one informant can taint dozens of cases. How one handler can manage a network of lies. How one DA can authorize a program that destroys hundreds of lives. See the connections no one else is tracking.
Each line on the graph represents a direct connection: a witness who testified in a case, a handler who managed an informant, or a DA who authorized the program. The more connections a node has, the larger it appears. Click any node to see full details.
The Orange County Jailhouse Informant Scandal is the flagship network: DA Tony Rackauckas authorized a program where Deputies Tunstall, Garcia, Grover, and Larson managed informants like Fernando Perez and Oscar Moriel, who together tainted 57+ criminal cases. The visualization shows exactly how the web of corruption spreads from one DA's office through layers of handlers and informants to destroy dozens of lives.
The LAPD Rampart network centers on Officer Rafael Perez, who admitted to hundreds of instances of perjury and implicated 28 fellow officers. 106 convictions were overturned. $125 million in settlements. One corrupt unit, radiating outward into hundreds of lives.
The Kern County network shows how DA Edward Jagels and a small group of social workers and therapists coached dozens of children into making false allegations, producing 36 convictions of which 34 were overturned. The network pattern is identical: a small number of authorities generating a massive cascade of injustice.
The False Eyewitness ID network maps 66+ California wrongful convictions caused by eyewitness misidentification -- the single largest factor in wrongful convictions (69% of DNA exonerations). Central agency nodes show how police departments like LAPD, LASD, and SFPD repeatedly used suggestive lineups, non-blind administration, cross-racial identification, and witness steering that destroyed hundreds of years of innocent lives. $90+ million in known settlements.
The Forensic Fraud network exposes four major California crime lab scandals (4,600+ cases affected) and four discredited forensic sciences still being used to imprison people: Shaken Baby Syndrome, bite mark analysis, microscopic hair comparison (FBI admitted 96% error rate), and pre-NFPA 921 arson science. One corrupt analyst -- Deborah Madden, who snorted cocaine at her SFPD workstation for 29 years -- caused 600+ case dismissals alone.
42% of wrongful convictions involve false testimony. This tool exposes the hidden connections that prosecutors never want you to see.