Delphi Defense Wants Suspect Moved to County Jail, Sheriff Doesn’t See an Issue with It

Source: Donnie Burgess / WIBC News

CARROLL COUNTY, Ind. — Two motions were filed by the Delphi defense team Monday with the hope that the suspect will finally be moved out of a maximum-security prison.

Suspect Richard Allen’s legal team filed a motion to modify the safekeeping order, which dates all the way back to November of 2022. That was the order that allowed Allen to be moved into a maximum-security prison. Attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rozzi argued at the time that it was unnecessary, and Allen would eventually be moved due to harmful prison conditions.

Then Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby argued in November of 2022 that Richard Allen “was in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death or represented a substantial threat to the safety of others.”

Baldwin and Rozzi say that is no longer the case and there should be no issue in moving Allen to a county jail, whether it be Carroll County or anywhere else.

That belief appears to be supported by current Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett. He was deposed by the Delphi defense team on May 3rd, 2024. It was during that deposition that Sheriff Liggett said “I did not have a problem with him (Richard Allen) going to Cass County; my problem was going to be transport. I never had a problem with him (Allen) staying in a county jail.”

Sheriff Liggett has since made arrangements for Allen to stay in the Tippecanoe County Jail during the trial, so says the defense. The trial was recently postponed to the fall, October 14th to November 15th.

The other motion filed by the defense Monday was for the court to provide financial reimbursement for attorney Jennifer Auger, who the defense says has become a key part of the team. Auger will conduct direct examination and cross examination of “experts in the field of cell phone forensics and geofencing”, says attorneys Baldwin and Rozzi.

The defense says Auger’s help will also be needed to absorb each piece of discovery, which Baldwin and Rozzi say totals to 26 terabytes of data. If you were to imagine each piece of data as a one-page document, 60-million pages of documents, claims the defense.

There’s a hearing set for May 21-23 in which the State and defense will argue over what evidence will be allowed in trial come October. Baldwin and Rozzi recently filed another motion to remove Special Judge Fran Gull. They claim she’s biased and needs to be off the case.

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