Attorney seeks to re-interview Texas officers
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - The attorneys in the case of Warren Steed Jeffs, the convicted leader of a Colorado City polygamist church, on Monday argued a motion about interviews with Texas law enforcement officers.

Jeffs' attorney, Mike Piccarreta, asked Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn to strike the prosecution's response to his motion to suppress evidence found in the April 2008 raid on a polygamist compound in Texas. In the alternative, Jeffs’ attorney is asking to re-interview the Texas officers and to answer all of Piccarreta's questions.

Piccarreta said that during interviews with a Texas Ranger and a Texas county sheriff, the Texas Attorney General's Office banned any inquiries into a hoax phone call that triggered the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas. Piccarreta called it a reckless disregard by Texas authorities.

The phone calls came from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl who claimed Dale Barlow, of Colorado City, sexually abused her; the calls came from a 33-year-old Colorado woman.

"They're blocking the truth-seeking process," Piccarreta said. "Everything about that phone call was completely fabricated."

Piccarreta admitted the bulk of his complaint is with Texas authorities, and not with Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith. The defense attorney is asking Conn to order Texas law enforcement officers to answer questions concerning the search warrant issued before the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas, or have Texas prosecutors acknowledge the call was a lie.

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith opposed striking the state's response and to re-interview the Texas officers. He said everyone now knows that the Colorado woman, Rozita Swinton, made the calls and Dale Barlow was not in Texas at the time. He also previously said he does not plan to present evidence collected from the Texas raid during Jeffs' trial in Mohave County.

Piccarreta also warned the judge of a potential problem of a possible criminal or civil conspiracy involving millions of dollars that has gone to attorneys of several state witnesses in the Arizona cases. The defense attorney claims Diversity Foundation recruits former FLDS members to sue the church and Jeffs.

Smith denied there is any criminal or civil conspiracy and said the money went to attorneys in a number of different cases in Utah. He said Piccarreta is grandstanding for the media.

Calling it a "symbolic gesture," Conn took Piccarreta's motion to strike state's response under advisement. He also granted a defense motion to depose Sam Brower and Rebecca Musser. Brower's deposition will take place April 10; Musser's deposition is April 30.

Brower is a private investigator who works with the Mohave County Attorney Office's investigator Gary Engels. Musser is a prosecution witness, who once was married to Jeffs' late father, Rulon Jeffs. Jeffs succeeded his father as the leader of the FLDS in Colorado City.

Jeffs, 52, is charged in Mohave County with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor in two 2007 cases involving two underage girls, which allegedly took place in 2002 and 2003.

Jeffs also is charged with felony sexual assault of a child under 17 and aggravated sexual assault in Schleicher County, Texas. He was convicted in 2007 in Utah on two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced in November 2007 to 10 years in a Utah prison.
 
MohaveDailyNews.com
Originally published Monday, March 30, 2009
 
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