Charges crumble after cell phone video uncovered- Washington Parish

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WASHINGTON PARISH, La. -- One of the worst days of Douglas Dendinger's life began with him handing an envelope to a police officer.

In order to help out his family and earn a quick $50, Dendinger agreed to act as a process server, giving a brutality lawsuit filed by his nephew to Chad Cassard as the former Bogalusa police officer exited the Washington Parish Courthouse.

The handoff went smoothly, but Dendinger said the reaction from Cassard, and a group of officers and attorneys clustered around him, turned his life upside down

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He was booked with simple battery, along with two felonies: obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness, both of which carry a maximum of 20 years in prison. Because of a prior felony cocaine conviction, Dendinger calculated that he could be hit with 80 years behind bars as a multiple offender.

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It wasn't fun and games," Kaplan said. "They had a plan. The plan was to really go after him a put him away. That's scary."

The case file that was handed to Reed and his office was bolstered by seven witness statements given to Washington Parish deputies, including the two from Reed's prosecutors.

In her statement to deputies, contained in a police report, Knight stated, "We could hear the slap as he hit Cassard's chest with an envelope of papers…This was done in a manner to threaten and intimidate everyone involved."

Casssard, in his statement, told deputies, Dendinger "slapped me in the chest."

Washington Parish court attorney Pamela Legendre said "it made such a noise," she thought the officer "had been punched."

Police Chief Culpepper gave a police statement that he witnessed the battery, but in a deposition he said, "I wasn't out there." But that didn't stop Culpepper from characterizing Dendinger's actions as "violence, force."

When Dendinger saw the police report, he said his reaction was strong and immediate.

"I realized even more at that moment: These people are trying to hurt me."

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What the officers and attorneys did not know was that Dendinger had one critical piece of evidence on his side: grainy cell phone videos shot by his wife and nephew. Dendinger said he thought of recording the scene at the last minute as a way of showing he had completed the task of serving the summons.

In the end, the two videos may have saved Dendinger from decades in prison. From what can be seen on the clips, Dendinger never touches Cassard, who calmly takes the envelope and walks back into the courthouse, handing Wall the envelope

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