Judge denies defense motion in Jeffs case
 
By JIM SECKLER
Mohave Daily News
 
KINGMAN - A Superior Court judge denied a defense motion Friday in the continuing case of the convicted leader of a Colorado City polygamist church.

In a hearing last week, Warren Jeffs' attorney, Mike Piccarreta, asked Superior Court Judge Steven Conn to strike Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith's response to his motion to suppress evidence found in the April 2008 raid on a polygamist compound in Texas. Jeffs' attorney also asked to re-interview the Texas officers.

Piccarreta claimed that during interviews with two Texas law enforcement officers the Texas Attorney General's Office refused to answer questions about a hoax phone call that triggered the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas.

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

Piccarreta asked Conn to order Texas law enforcement officers to answer all 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.

Conn, who called the motion a symbolic gesture, said he believed the reason for the motion is to express Piccarreta's frustration to question Texas officers further about the hoax phone call in an attempt to suppress all evidence found at the Texas compound.

"The fact remains that the court will eventually rule on the defense motion to suppress by determining what the facts are based on the evidence presented, not based on counsel's pleadings, will identify what it considers the applicable law, will apply that law to facts and will by that process formulate a ruling on the motion," Conn ruled.

Smith previously said he does not plan to present evidence collected from the Texas raid during Jeffs' trial in Mohave County but has not ruled it out, either.

In another ruling, Conn ordered Sam Brower and Rebecca Musser to be deposed in Las Vegas. Brower's deposition will now take place April 15, and Musser's deposition will take place April 30. Brower is a private investigator who works with Mohave County Attorney Office's investigator Gary Engels, and Musser is a prosecution witness who once was married to Jeffs' late father, Rulon Jeffs.

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 Wednesday, April 8, 2009
 
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