The defense team representing Floyd Galloway, the man accused in the 2016 killing of Danielle Stislicki, has filed a motion in Oakland County Circuit Court requesting the complete removal of lead investigators from the prosecution. Defense counsel contends that law enforcement personnel were improperly exposed to privileged information that should have remained confidential, creating a substantial risk of tainting any continuing legal proceedings against the defendant.
Defense attorney Ellen Michaels submitted the formal request asking the court to disqualify Detectives Robert Gerak and Ryan Molloy of the Farmington Hills Police Department, who serve as the primary officers in charge of the homicide investigation. The filing also seeks to exclude Sgt. Chad Double, also of the Farmington Hills department, along with any other investigative personnel who were exposed to Galloway's protected defense materials.
In the motion, Michaels asks the presiding judge to bar these officers from any further substantive participation in the homicide case. To protect the integrity of the judicial process, the defense argues that the state must be required to proceed through an entirely untainted investigative unit that has had no exposure to the protected defense disclosures.
The controversy surrounding the investigative team stems from an unauthorized breach of confidentiality involving a polygraph examination. Jim Hoppe, a former FBI agent who conducted a polygraph test on Galloway, improperly disclosed details of what he learned to Gary Mayer, who was the Troy Police Chief at the time.
Following that conversation, Mayer relayed the confidential tip to then-Farmington Hills Police Chief Charles Nebus, whose department was actively leading the investigation into Stislicki's disappearance. The information provided by Hoppe identified Galloway as a primary suspect and outlined allegations regarding his specific conduct on the night Stislicki vanished. Records reflect that Hoppe shared the confidential data because he feared critical physical evidence could be lost in an impending snowstorm, while requesting that his identity be kept separate from the tip.
The first-degree murder case against Galloway has been pending in the court system since charges were filed in 2019. Throughout the multi-year legal process, the prosecution has been significantly delayed by repeated defense appeals and legal battles over the admissibility of evidence obtained downstream from the polygraph examiner's illegal disclosure.
The latest defense motion follows a major ruling issued in November 2024 by former Oakland County Circuit Judge Phyllis McMillen. In that decision, Judge McMillen determined that the Michigan Attorney General's Office was required to appoint an untainted prosecutor to handle the case—specifically an attorney who had never viewed or accessed the privileged information derived from the polygraph examiner.
Judicial management of the proceedings shifted when Judge McMillen retired from the circuit court bench at the end of 2024. Following her departure, Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael Warren assumed responsibility for the case, taking over the task of ensuring that future proceedings are conducted fairly and in accordance with prior evidence suppression rulings.
Last month, Michaels attempted to disqualify the entire Michigan Attorney General's Office from handling the case altogether. Although Judge Warren denied that broad disqualification request, he reaffirmed Judge McMillen's prior findings, ruling that any prosecutors previously assigned to the matter who were exposed to the improperly obtained evidence are legally barred from trying the case in court.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office has consented to designate an untainted prosecutor to lead the prosecution once all pending motions concerning evidence suppression have been resolved by the court. However, state prosecutors have not yet filed a formal written response addressing Michaels' most recent request to disqualify the Farmington Hills police detectives.
In her written motion, Michaels argued that merely replacing the trial attorneys is insufficient to protect Galloway's constitutional rights if the underlying detectives remain on the investigative team. She maintained that establishing a legal firewall at a later date cannot reverse the investigative choices and strategies that were already shaped by privileged defense information.
Michaels noted in her filing that once protected defense information informs a detective's investigative work, excising the physical documents from a case file does not eliminate that knowledge from the detective's personal recollection or professional judgment. An exposed investigator continues to make pivotal choices regarding which witnesses warrant attention, which facts require emphasis, how prospective witnesses are prepared, and what information is ultimately communicated to the trial prosecutor.
The defense emphasized that such investigative influence inevitably carries the underlying taint forward into trial preparation, even if no member of the investigative team ever directly repeats the privileged communication to the newly assigned prosecutor. Enforcing a complete separation between exposed officers and the ongoing case is the only remedy, Michaels argued.
Galloway is currently serving a prison sentence of 16 to 35 years following a separate 2016 conviction for a kidnapping committed in Livonia. He faces an open charge of first-degree murder in Oakland County in connection with Stislicki's disappearance in December 2016.
State prosecutors allege that Galloway killed Stislicki after feigning automobile troubles to convince her to give him a ride. Although extensive searches and multi-agency investigations have been conducted since she went missing in late 2016, Stislicki's body has never been recovered, leaving the prosecution to proceed based on circumstantial evidence that now faces intense procedural scrutiny.
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