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By Amy Graham-McCarty
amy@hurdmedia.com
Richard Allen’s current legal counsel has waived their client’s right to a speedy trial – a trial they requested in March. A new trial date in Carroll County has been set for Oct. 14 through Nov. 15.
Allen has been charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of murder in the deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German. The girls were reported missing on Feb. 13, 2017, after they were dropped off at the Monon High Bridge Trail to go hiking. Their bodies were found the next day not far from the bridge.
On Tuesday, May 7, during a pretrial hearing to discuss the length of the trial, Brad Rozzi, one of Allen’s attorneys, said to Special Judge Fran Gull, “You don’t know anything about this case.” Rozzi followed a statement by Gull who said, “If you can’t try this case in one month, there’s something wrong.”
Allen County’s Chief Public Defender and the defendant’s former attorney Bill Lebrato said Rozzi seemed “a bit aggressive” in his statement.
“I didn’t really see any animation from the prosecutor or judge,” Lebrato said of the hearing. “Mr. Rozzi did the vast majority of the talking for the Defense. Without knowing what had been happening since I got off the case, it seemed a bit aggressive telling the judge she didn’t know anything about the case.
“Knowing a little bit of background, I think I, and everyone else, anticipated the continuance would be asked for today.”
Lebrato and Robert Scremin stepped in as counsel for Allen in January when Andrew Baldwin and Rozzi were removed from the case.
“I had originally asked the trial to be set for October,” Lebrato said. “I had told Judge Gull on the record in Carroll County Circuit Court that I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t know how much discovery there was, so we were going to need several months to prepare. When Mr. Scremin and I set those dates, we knew they would be tentative. We had no idea of what was coming our way.”
Lebrato said he wasn’t familiar with the Delphi case when assigned Allen as a client.
“Honestly, up until the middle of October, I didn’t even know that Delphi was in Indiana,” he said. “I have a caseload of just murder cases, and I tend to focus on my cases.”
Supreme pick
Lebrato said his office is still digging out from under cases that piled up during COVID. Presently, he handles three to four murder cases a year due to his administrative duties, he said. He has tried cases in front of Gull previously.
“The Supreme Court didn’t pick Judge Gull by accident, they picked her for a reason,” he said. “She absolutely knows what she is doing. They would be hard-pressed to find a judge as qualified as her anywhere in the state, in my opinion.
“She runs her courtroom, but she’s fair and practical. I would not have taken the appointment if she wasn’t the judge on the case.”
Trial delay
During Tuesday’s hearing, Rozzi told Gull he didn’t believe an end date should be set for the trial.
Carroll County prosecutor Nick McLeland said he had dwindled his witness list down to 40-45 people and was satisfied with the May trial date.
“We’re not saying we’re not ready, we’re just saying we don’t want you to bookend this,” Rozzi said to the judge.
The Defense said they would need at least 15 business days to present their case in chief. Lebrato says that seems excessive.
“I did a life without parole case last year – a quadruple homicide – and it is rare for the defense to have as many witnesses as the prosecution, as (the prosecution) would have the burden of proof. From my perspective, when I was reviewing the discovery, five to seven days at most would be needed for the Defense to present their case, but I have not seen all of the discovery.”
Lebrato said it was stated during the hearing that when Gull set the trial for three weeks and a substantial amount of time had passed without objection from the attorneys. The Defense did file a motion on April 29 stating that they feared they would not have enough time to present their case and requested the May 7 hearing.
“She used a baseball analogy and told the Defense it is her job to call balls and strikes and not to manage attorneys,” Lebrato said.
Gull stated during the hearing she would only be communicating with the Defense in person, or chambers in the future, as her emails were becoming a part of court documents filed by the attorneys. The Defense, on Tuesday, filed their second motion requesting Gull recuse herself from the case. The first time she declined citing an Indiana Supreme Court ruling in which she was allowed to stay on the case.
Allen’s attorneys originally asked for a speedy trial citing the diminished health and well-being of their client, who is being housed at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. At the end of the hearing, they asked for housing for Allen. The topic was not discussed publicly between the attorneys and Gull.
Different dynamic
Lebato said the back-and-forth between the attorneys and the judge is not typical for trials.
“This has a different dynamic to it,” he said. “These are attorneys that don’t normally deal with one another. Frankly, there are not a lot of serious violent crimes in Carroll County from what I can gather.
“Mr. Allen’s attorneys were appointed and, as far as I know, they were not connected before, nor have they had dealings with Mr. McLeland in the past.
“(In Allen County) I know who the prosecutors are; I have a working relationship with them. We have an understanding of how our judges work. We all kind of have an idea of the players in the game and (this trial) is just different. When Mr. Scremin and I were on the case, we had a good working relationship with the prosecutors. Keep in mind, we were only on the case for about 90 days.”
Allen’s innocence
Lebrato said during his time on the case, he was able to get through a small amount of discovery, but enough to prove to him that Allen is innocent.
“There is more discovery in this case because no arrest had been made in 5 ½ years,” he said. “I believe Mr. Allen is innocent, not because he told me, but based on the evidence I saw. I have not seen all of the evidence because there was a lot and we could only get through so much in 90 days, less than 90 days actually.”
Smoking gun
The evidence gaining attention in the media in recent weeks is the bullet found at the crime scene “under Libby’s shoe, under Abby’s body.”
“I didn’t put much weight on that bullet because it wasn’t fired from a gun,” Lebrato said. “I was always of the mindset that you have 100-plus people looking for these girls, several were most likely armed. That bullet could have come from anywhere, in my opinion.”
When asked about the location of the bullet, Lebrato said, “That crime scene was horribly contaminated. You had search parties out looking for these girls. No one knows if they were killed right there, or if their bodies were moved prior to, or after, they were killed. There may be an answer, but I just didn’t see it in the discovery I viewed in that short time frame.”
Lebrato said he would not go into more detail about the crime scene at this time.
“I do not want to hinder the Defense or the prosecution. It would not be fair to Mr. Allen or the families of those little girls,” he said. “I feel horrible for those families.”
Allen will be back in Carroll County on May 21-23 for a hearing to determine if confessions he allegedly made to his wife, mother, ISP, IDOC officers, and inmates are admissible in court, as well as a motion filed by the Defense to sanction the State for delayed discovery. The Court will also address a document filed by McLeland on May 6, that he says, incriminates Allen in the crimes.
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