Defense counsel representing the man accused in the 2016 disappearance and killing of Danielle Stislicki has submitted a formal motion before an Oakland County Circuit Court judge, demanding the complete removal of the lead police investigators from the case. The defense filing asserts that the ongoing murder prosecution must be protected from contamination caused by privileged defense information that law enforcement personnel should never have possessed.
In the newly submitted court petition, defense attorney Ellen Michaels is seeking the immediate disqualification of two primary officers in charge of the investigation, Detectives Robert Gerak and Ryan Molloy of the Farmington Hills Police Department. Additionally, the motion calls for the removal of Sgt. Chad Double, also with the Farmington Hills Police Department, alongside any other law enforcement personnel who were exposed to the confidential material.
Michaels is formally requesting that these designated officers be barred from any further substantive participation in the homicide proceedings. The defense argues that to ensure a constitutional and fair trial, any continuing prosecution against her client must be handled exclusively through an untainted investigative team that possesses no prior exposure to the suppressed defense communications.
The defendant, Floyd Galloway, has been facing first-degree murder charges in connection with Stislicki’s death since 2019. However, the progression of the case through the judicial system has been severely slowed by a lengthy series of legal appeals and defense efforts to exclude evidence gathered after protected information was improperly turned over to municipal police departments.
According to prosecutors, Galloway is accused of killing Stislicki in December 2016 after pretending to experience car trouble in order to convince her to give him a ride. Although investigators and search teams have never located Stislicki’s body, state prosecutors have continued to pursue the first-degree murder charge based on circumstantial evidence and investigative findings.
Galloway is already incarcerated within the state correctional system, where he is serving a sentence of 16 to 35 years. That separate prison term was handed down following his conviction for a 2016 kidnapping incident that took place in the neighboring community of Livonia.
The central legal controversy that has complicated the murder trial stems from actions taken by a polygraph examiner who had administered a test to Galloway. Jim Hoppe, a former FBI agent who conducted the examination on Galloway's behalf, breached confidentiality by improperly disclosing privileged information obtained during the process to Gary Mayer, who was serving as the Troy Police Chief.
During his unauthorized communication with Mayer, Hoppe shared details concerning Galloway as a suspect, alleging what had occurred on the night Stislicki vanished. Hoppe explained that he was reaching out because he feared that an impending winter snowstorm might lead to the destruction of vital evidence, while explicitly requesting that his identity be kept out of the official tip.
Upon receiving the illicit details, Mayer transferred the information to then-Farmington Hills Police Chief Charles Nebus, whose department held jurisdiction over the missing person and homicide investigation. That tip became a foundational element of the subsequent law enforcement probe, ultimately leading to search actions and evidence seizures that have since faced rigorous defense suppression challenges.
The systemic fallout from the polygraph leak led to major judicial interventions regarding the prosecution team. In November 2024, Oakland County Circuit Judge Phyllis McMillen ruled that the Michigan Attorney General's Office could not proceed with its existing team and was required to appoint an untainted prosecutor—specifically an attorney who had never viewed or been exposed to the suppressed privileged evidence.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office consented to the requirement, agreeing to officially assign an untainted prosecutor once all pending evidentiary suppression motions had been fully resolved in court. Judge McMillen had been working to finalize the mechanisms to ensure the new prosecutorial appointments met legal standards and preserved court fairness prior to her retirement from the bench at the end of 2024.
Following McMillen's retirement, Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael Warren took over the presiding duties in the case. Last month, Michaels sought a comprehensive order disqualifying the entire Michigan Attorney General's Office from handling the prosecution, but Judge Warren rejected that broad request and allowed the agency to remain on the case under specific conditions.
Judge Warren upheld the core requirement that any prosecutors previously assigned to the matter who had exposure to the illegally disclosed information cannot participate in the trial. The court reaffirmed that the Attorney General's Office must introduce an untainted prosecutor who remains completely free from the influence of the privileged polygraph details before the case can advance to trial.
In her latest motion targeting the police detectives, Michaels contends that replacing the prosecuting attorneys alone is fundamentally insufficient if the primary investigating officers remain involved. She argued in court filings that an investigator's memory and subjective judgment cannot be cleansed simply by removing documents from a file, asserting that tainted officers will inevitably influence which witnesses are prioritized, how witness preparation is conducted, and what facts are emphasized to the incoming prosecutor.
Michaels stressed in her motion that while an investigative firewall erected at this stage cannot erase prior investigative choices molded by privileged data, removing the exposed officers is necessary to halt the forward transmission of that taint. The Michigan Attorney General's Office has not yet filed a formal response to Michaels' latest motion seeking the disqualification of the Farmington Hills detectives.
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