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  Sect Teen Still Looks to Drop Lawyer

San Angelo Standard-Times

July 23, 2008

http://gosanangelo.com/news/2008/jul/22/sect-teen-still-looks-to-drop-lawyer/

While a grand jury in Schleicher County deliberated over possible criminal charges against members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the attorney for one of the children in the case was attempting to keep her client.

Teresa Jeffs, 16, filed a motion in Schleicher County court, according to a story in the Salt Lake Tribune, seeking to have her court-appointed attorney, Natalie Malonis, dismissed. The motion, the paper said, included allusions to Malonis' personal life, including a divorce, to argue that the Flower Mound lawyer was unsuited to represent Jeffs.

"I don't know what my divorce has to do with Teresa's custody case," Malonis told the Standard-Times on Tuesday. Referring to the motion, she said, "It's not accurate, and it's a ridiculous tactic."

Jeffs had earlier made an unsuccessful motion to have Malonis replaced after Malonis attempted to secure a restraining order against sect elder Willie Jessop, who Malonis alleged was influencing her client to defy court orders.

"This is not coming from her," Malonis said. " It will take more than this to get me off the case. It's just more of the same intimidation and fear tactics."

Malonis did file an emergency motion Tuesday in 51st District Court, seeking a judge's order to seal a report to district court by Court Appointed Special Advocates Connie Gauwain and Shirley Davis. Malonis argued in the motion that, "If the report is not sealed immediately and before a hearing can be had, the child will suffer irreparable harm through further dissemination of information in the report."

A court clerk told the Standard-Times the report in question was not available to the public, but Malonis said portions of the report - which she said include "photographs, journal entries, and documents which contain personal details about the child and her family, which details specifically pertain to allegations of sexual abuse against the child" - nonetheless have appeared in the media.

 
 

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