JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (The video above is from a previous story)
A Jacksonville judge will not disqualify a prosecutor from a pending criminal case, saying she can’t determine whether the allegations made against her by a public defender are true.
In an order issued late Friday, Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador said she was unable to determine whose version of events she could trust.
“Having listened to the testimony of the witnesses, and observed their demeanor on the stand, and known these attorneys and their reputations, it is impossible for this Court to ascertain who is telling the truth and who is lying in this matter,” she wrote.
Her order denied a motion to disqualify Assistant State Attorney Leah Owns in which Assistant Public Defender Teri Sopp claimed Owens threatened her client with prison time if she did not cooperate as a state’s witness. Owens denies making the threat.
Even if the threat occurred, Salvador determined, it did not rise to the level of "substantial misconduct,” the standard for disqualifying a prosecutor.
The defendant also “failed to establish ‘actual prejudice’ in her case as a result of the threat,” the judge wrote.
Noting the defendant does not qualify for prison based on the charges against her, Salvador wrote, “even if such a threat was made, it is hollow and of no effect.”
Sopp testified under oath late last month that Owens approached her in a courtroom April 20.
“Mrs. Owens came up to me in court and said, ‘I just want you to know, if your client testifies for [her boyfriend in a murder case], she's going to be facing prison time,’” Sopp testified.
“I said to Mrs. Owens, ‘Well that sounds like a threat.’ And she says, ‘You can take that as a threat.’”
Sopp said she believed the exchange amounted to “inappropriate and possibly unethical” conduct, and asked that Owens and the entire 4th Circuit State Attorneys’ Office be removed from the case.
On the stand, Owens denied making the threat, saying she merely asked Sopp if her client would testify on behalf of the state in the pending murder case against her boyfriend.
“We didn't even have that long of a conversation. It happened within moments," Owens testified. "And that's not even possible. I know that that's not a possibility under [the defendant's potential sentencing] guidelines.”
Defense attorney Patrick Korody represents the defendant’s boyfriend. At the hearing he testified he received a text from Sopp shortly after the April 20 conversation that read, “Leah Owens bizarrely came up to me in court this morning and asked [the defendant] to cooperate with the state, and threatened prison time if she didn't. I told her, ‘look [sic] that as a threat.’ And she said to consider it as one.”
“Perhaps this was simply a matter of misinterpretation of words or miscommunication through whispers, or someone is truly lying,” Salvador wrote. “This Court simply does not know and cannot make a finding either way.”
A hearing in the case is set for the end of November.