Man serving life sentence for Baltimore detective's murder charged in fraud scheme to get out of prison

Brandon Grimes, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of a Baltimore City police detective nearly 18 years ago, faces new charges in a scheme to get out of prison. 

Prosecutors allege Grimes used outside help and spent years concocting a plan to falsify a ballistics report to secure his release.

They also claim he was trying to defraud the state out of more than $1 million. 

New charges 

According to charging documents obtained by WJZ Investigates, Grimes faked a ballistics report to show he did not kill Detective Troy Chesley in January 2007 and hoped to get hundreds of thousands of dollars as payment for being wrongly convicted. 

Detective Chesley was killed during a robbery while he was off duty. In the violent attack, he managed to shoot at Grimes, who survived. 

In March 2024, Grimes, who was imprisoned at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland, filed a petition for writ of actual innocence with the Baltimore City Circuit Court.

He alleged in 2018 that an assistant state's attorney "turned over to Grimes various pieces of newly discovered evidence she found, and amongst those documents was a ballistic report she claimed she found in a box somewhere."

Grimes claimed Baltimore police suppressed that report, and a document labeled "confidential" showed he was shot by the same weapon that killed Detective Chesley—and therefore proved he was not the killer.

Unraveling the scheme 

Authorities were able to foil the alleged innocence scheme. 

An investigation found the report's style was not authentic, property numbers did not match, and two firearms examiners listed in the report Grimes filed with the court never prepared or signed the real document. 

Authorities said they were able to determine that Grimes convinced a woman he met on Facebook that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

In recorded calls from prison, police said Grimes laid out the plan to falsify the ballistics report and told her, "My fight is to get the [expletive] out of here."

He planned to get money from the state for a wrongful conviction to the tune of more than $1.4 million, documents stated. 

He also told the woman, "When I get this exoneration money, I'll make sure you don't work again."

Prosecutors alleged he also connected with an unidentified person to assist in fixing the ballistics report and stated, "His homeboy can do everything you need. If you need a birth certificate changed, he can do that."

In more recorded conversations detailed in the court filing, "…the unknown man repeatedly assured Grimes, making statements to the effect of, 'I got you. I got you.'"

Charging documents stated Grimes and the woman he met on Facebook had more conversations about the forged ballistics document—with the woman stating, "I could glue that down then Xerox it" and "once I Xerox it, I could white the edges out of it…then do it one more time, and then you won't be able to tell."

The documents also quote Grimes in jailhouse calls stating, "If everything goes to plan, can get my case new traction" and claiming "'if [I] would have gone to trial on self-defense, [it] would have went in [his] favor' and "instead he went with '[he] didn't do it at all' and 'don't even care about the truth, what's the best story.'"

Authorities move in 

City State's Attorney Ivan Bates requested Grimes be moved to a lockup in Baltimore, where he is facing six new charges including fraudulent identity, information, theft, fabricating physical evidence in a criminal proceeding and obstructing justice.

Charging documents state, "Brandon Grimes, willfully and knowingly assumed the identities [of firearms experts] with the fraudulent intent of securing a benefit—his release and exoneration—in hopes of securing $100,000 or more in per diem per year from the state of Maryland."

Detective Chesley's memory has been honored over the years by the city, including a street renamed for him in 2021.

Grimes' fraud case is moving forward with a motion for a speedy trial, and he is next scheduled to go before a judge on November 24.