Two Miami mothers whose teenage sons were killed in a 2009 Liberty City shooting say police turned their grief into a bureaucratic maze, failing to disclose that a confessed killer had been granted immunity and then sending the families a bill to see the case file. Lasonja Mills and Tangela Johnson have filed a federal suit that asks the court to order the release of nine boxes of records and to explain why investigators allegedly kept key deals under wraps. The complaint also says the Miami Police Department charged the families $1,831 for access to the case materials.
Mills and Johnson say they have spent roughly two years, through their attorney Michele Borchew, trying to obtain records they believe will show who knew about William “Little Bill” Brown’s confession and any arrangements made with prosecutors. The suit claims the department did not tell the victims’ families that Brown had secretly confessed and that he had been granted immunity for some killings. As reported by the Miami Herald, the filing demands production of nine boxes of case material and seeks what the families describe as “clarity and accountability.”
A 2024 exposé republished on Yahoo detailed Brown’s work as a jailhouse informant and reported that he confessed to multiple shootings, including the January 23, 2009 Liberty City attack that left two teenagers dead. According to that reporting, Brown admitted involvement in shootings of 15 people, six of them fatal, and prosecutors arranged a reduced 25-year sentence that left some confessed killings without additional prison time. The new civil complaint argues that those arrangements, along with the department’s failure to alert the victims’ families, are central to what the requested records will reveal.
Mothers seek answers
“They treated us like our sons were the shooters,” Mills wrote in court papers, capturing the frustration both mothers say they felt as the informant allegedly received special treatment while they remained in the dark, according to the complaint. Their attorney says the families repeatedly asked police for records and were met with a bill for the release of the files. As reported by the Miami Herald, the suit accuses the department of violating victims’ rights and basic standards of transparency.
What Marsy’s Law covers
The suit invokes Marsy’s Law, the 2018 Florida constitutional amendment that expanded victims’ rights, and argues that the families should have been notified of significant developments that affected the case. Marsy’s Law guarantees victims a range of procedural protections, including notice of important proceedings and the ability to confer with prosecutors, although courts have struggled with how far those protections extend to investigatory files. As noted by FindLaw, the amendment leaves open questions about enforcement and remedies when victims say their rights were ignored…