In his written order, visiting Judge Mark W. Bennett of the Northern District of Iowa said the court “finds that an expedited response to the [defendants’] motion should be required.”
The prosecution, Bennett said, will have up to Aug. 2, 2010 to file an expedited response to the motion to settle the differences regarding relevant district court orders and events and to conform with the record.
On July 23, 2010, Dennis P. Riordan, the counsel for Villagomez and his co-accused, asked the court for an order that will disclose what truly occurred “with respect to public attendance, or the barring thereof, during the jury [selection] conducted on March 30 and 31, 2009.”
During the April 14, 2010 hearing for the defendants’ motion for bail on appeal, Villagomez and his co-accused through their counsels “argued that the…court violated their Sixth Amendment right to a public trial when it failed to permit the public to take available seats” in the courtroom during the trial.
The federal court denied the motion on April 22, 2010.
During the April 14 hearing, the parties expressed fundamental differences as to whether the record disclosed what had actually occurred in the court during the jury selection.
“Defendants contended that the public had been entirely excluded from the [jury selection], while the prosecution challenged that claim and stated that, based on the present record, there was no reason to believe any improper exclusion occurred,” Riordan said in his motion on behalf of Villagomez and his co-defendants: his brother-in-law, former Commerce Secretary James A. Santos, and Joaquina V. Santos, Villagomez’s sister.
They were convicted on April 24, 2009 of charges relating to a scheme to defraud the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.
