Hearing expected on seized evidence
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - A Phoenix attorney is asking a Mohave County Superior Court judge to order Texas law enforcement officers to answer questions concerning a search warrant issued before a raid on a polygamist compound in Texas.

Mike Piccarreta, the attorney for Warren Steed Jeffs, the convicted leader of a Colorado City polygamist church, is asking Judge Steven Conn to hold a hearing to argue whether to sanction the prosecution's response to his motion to suppress evidence found in the April raid.

Jeffs, 52, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Colorado City, 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.

Piccarreta claims that during depositions with a Texas Ranger and a Texas county sheriff that the state of Texas and Arizona banned any inquiries into a "hoax" phone call that triggered the raid on the FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas.

Officers reportedly used the hoax to obtain a warrant to search the compound. The Texas officers allegedly collected evidence that was seized illegally during the raid, he argued.

The defense attorney also said Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith would not admit the search warrant contained false accusations of criminal activity since the "victim" was fictitious and the alleged suspect was not at the compound. Smith's response is impeding the progress of the case, Piccarreta added.

The search warrant was issued after a call from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl who said she had been sexually abused by Dale Barlow of Colorado City. The phone calls came from a childless, 33-year-old Colorado woman who allegedly been linked to about a dozen allegations of sexual abuse dating back to 2005, Piccarreta said.

Recent interviews with Texas officers forbid any questions about the phone call, which Piccarreta said is a pattern of obstruction by Texas authorities.

On Jan. 20, Conn ordered that the attorneys must tell the judge by Friday if an evidentiary hearing would be set, how long the hearing would be, what witnesses would testify and what issues would be addressed.

Jeffs is also charged with felony sexual assault of a child under 17 and aggravated sexual assault in Schleicher County, Texas. He was convicted in 2007 in St. George, Utah, on two counts of rape as an accomplice and was sentenced in November 2007 to 10 years in a Utah prison. He is housed in Mohave County Jail awaiting trial in the Arizona charges.
 
MohaveDailyNews.com
Originally published Sunday, February 22, 2009
 
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