| On October 3, 2023, the manager of a Safeway store in Arlington, Virginia reported that a woman had placed Tide pods in her backpack and left the store without paying. Police officer Carly Whisner searched the woman’s backpack, found the pods and arrested the woman, who identified herself as 45-year-old Keyiede McLean.
In fact, the woman was McLean’s 41-year-old sister Kalonda McLean, who had a lengthy history of shoplifting and theft.
Officer Whisner issued a summons for a misdemeanor charge of petit larceny and McLean was released.
On December 19, 2023, a bench trial in the case commenced in General District Court in Arlington. McLean did not appear. She was convicted in absentia and fined $100. No jail time was imposed.
In 2024, Keyiede McLean, who was living in Georgia, underwent a routine background check for a job as a nurse with an online company that is a source for families seeking home care. She was informed she had a petit larceny conviction in Arlington.
In October 2024, Keyiede reached out to officer Whisner via email, saying that she believed her sister had falsely identified herself as Keyiede. She included a copy of a photograph of her sister, Kalonda, as well as a photograph of herself.
The email was passed on to Francis Webb, assistant attorney for the Commonwealth Attorney’s office for Arlington County, who handled the case at trial, and to Isabel Corngold, the director of the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church.
Webb and Corngold separately reviewed the body camera footage from Officer Whisner and compared the woman in the footage to the photographs Keyiede McLean had sent. Webb and Corngold independently concluded that the woman in the photograph was not Keyiede McLean.
On October 24, 2024, Keyiede McLean traveled to Arlington where she met with Webb, Corngold and police officers. She confirmed that the woman in the footage was her sister.
On January 21, 2025, Webb and Corngold filed a motion to vacate the conviction and dismiss the case.
“[T]here was a clear false representation when the person being arrested intentionally and knowingly provided an identity that was not her own,” the motion said. “This misrepresentation was made with the intent to mislead and obscure her true identity.”
The conviction was “based on fraud on the court,” the motion said. “In order for this miscarriage of justice to be corrected, the conviction must be vacated.”
On January 22, 2025, the motion was granted, the conviction was vacated, and the case was dismissed.
The case was the first exoneration for the CIU, which was created by State’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, who formerly worked to exonerate the wrongly convicted.
– Maurice Possley
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