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Mason's attorney seeks sanctions against RiebeThis article was originally published in the the Amador Ledger Dispatch on March 10, 1999, and is reproduced here with its permission. By Diane Smith JACKSON—Local attorney and former Amador County District Attorney Bud E. Lewis, filed motions in Amador Superior Court last Thursday for sanctions and an order to provide discovery against current District Attorney Todd Riebe. Lewis has been retained by Dave Mason III of Ione, one of three charged with conspiring to illegally remove a gas tank. "Discovery," the documentation legal opponents provide each other before a court action, is still forthcoming, Lewis cites in the motion. He had presented Riebe with an informal discovery request Jan. 12 asking for the voluminous documentation by Jan. 25 so that pre-plea defense motions could be addressed by the defendants in grand jury charges over the removal of the underground gas tank. To date, discovery has not been accomplished. Lewis claims that not only did Riebe fail to comply with the request, he and special prosecutor David Irey offered to the public via radio and cable television, purported evidence that they withheld from the defendants. Lewis notes he also requested in open court, on January 27, 1999, the documentation presented to the Ledger Dispatch concerning the honesty, guilt and/or culpability of co-defendant Robert Womack; (See Ledger Dispatch article "Prosecutors: Womack lied", Jan. 24, 1999.) Lewis calls the prosecutor's press release "a prejudicial, defamatory and false information piece." The court refused at that time to address the issue saying it was not "properly motioned." No response was received regarding either of the earlier requests, Lewis said, and that is the reason he is asking the court this week to order the prosecution to disclose to the defense, the the basis for what Riebe and Irey have publicly called "evidence." In the motion, Lewis maintains that discovery material is necessary to the proper defense of his client, Mason. In addition to forcing discovery, he asks the court to also order an index of the grand jury documentation. The exhibits, he points out, are "12 large volumes of 1,441 pages of co-mingled and non-indexed evidence and documents in such a manner as to be unusable in its present form without hours of exhaustive time to organize and index the information to make it usable." The motion ends with a statement by Lewis: "I firmly believe these delays are caused by the refusal of a biased and personally involved District Attorney to comply with discovery law and are intended to draw this case out to prejudice the defendants by additional bad press. For these reasons I request the Court impose sanction for the refusal/delay in providing discovery..." Lewis is referring to radio and more recently, cable television statements made by the prosecution about the grand jury indictment case against Mason and two other defendants Mark Sherrill and Robert Womack. A plea is expected to be entered by all three defendants on April 2, during a 9 a.m. extended arraignment. No trial date has been set. Calls were placed to Riebe's office by the Ledger Dispatch on both Monday and Tuesday in an attempt to give the District Attorney an opportunity to respond. The calls were not returned. Copyright © 1999 Amador Ledger Dispatch |
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