Judge Throws Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys Out of Courtroom

SAN ANGELO, TX — The 51st District Judge Barbara Walther sent two assistant District Attorneys and two defense attorneys out of the courtroom into the hallway Thursday afternoon in the middle of a hearing to grant a continuance delaying again the jury trial for a man charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.  

A clearly unhappy Walther instructed assistant District Attorneys Tiffany Sheppard and Ashley White to step out into the hall with defense attorneys Ray Leifeste and Christopher Flores to discuss how to get a case file from a District Court in Pennsylvania.  At issue is the alleged victim in the sexual assault made a similar accusation in Pennsylvania six years earlier and according to Leifeste the nature of both cases are similar.

Emilio Cortez is accused of sexually assaulting a girl under the age of 14 in 2010.  He was 49-years-old at the time.

According to the attorneys, the District Attorney’s office had requested the case file from the Pennsylvania court and the judge there refused to release the records because the defendant was a juvenile and juvenile criminal records are sealed.  

While the attorneys conferred in the hallway, Judge Walther continued with the docket hearing other cases.  

When the attorneys were allowed back in the courtroom, Leifeste told Judge Walther he had spoken on the phone with a parole officer in Pennsylvania and still had not been able to obtain the records.  Walther listened as Leifeste said he recently found out that the victim’s father had been interviewed for the Pennsylvania trial and would be an important witness in this case. Leifeste said he could subpoena the witness to testify in this case and Judge Walther could then order the case file be made available to the defense attorneys.  

Judge Walther then calmly and professionally asked Leifeste to draft another letter requesting her court subpoena the witness and obtain the records.  Leifeste said he would.

Assistant District Attorney Tiffany Sheppard continued to object to the motion for a continuance of the trial saying the out of state case file might not be admissible.  Judge Walther agreed that some of the information might not be admissible in this case, but the defense attorneys had a right to see the information anyway.

Walther ordered the jury trial be postponed and will it be reset at a later date.