Paul Hammel
LINCOLN — Opposing attorneys delved deep into the legal weeds Tuesday in debating whether Trevor Jones, the former head of the state’s history agency, had been denied a speedy trial.
The defense attorney for Jones, the former head of History Nebraska, maintained that prosecutors had failed to request a trial date and that his right to a trial within six months, minus exclusions, ran out on Sept. 12.
Because of that, defense lawyer Mallory Hughes asked that the felony theft by deception charge against her 52-year-old client be dismissed.
But prosecutor Sandra Allen of the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office said that her office had failed to receive some notices about the case.
She said the state also still regarded Jones’ former defense attorney, John Ball, as his attorney of record because the court had not ruled on Ball’s formal request to withdraw as defense counsel in March.
Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong took the arguments under advisement after a 15-minute hearing. She gave the attorneys until the end of the year to submit written briefs on the speedy trial issue.
Trevor Jones faces up to 20 years in prison for felony theft by deception, a charge sparked by a critical state audit in 2022. The audit — first reported by the Nebraska Examiner — discovered that Jones had redirected about $270,000 provided by the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation into a private foundation Jones had set up to replace the State Historical Society Foundation. The funds had been sought to cover the agency’s financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
By state law, such funds should be deposited with the state treasurer.
Jones resigned the $164,800-a-year job just before the audit was released. He has pleaded not guilty, and through his defense attorneys, made more than one attempt to get the charge dropped.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Jones’ attorney, Hughes, told the judge that it would be “fundamentally unfair” to rule against her motion to dismiss the charges based on a lack of notice or ruling on the exit of the previous defense attorney.
Hughes said that the Attorney General’s Office has been communicating with her office, and that they had realized Ball was no longer handling Jones’ defense.
Allen, who recently took over the case for the AG’s Office, maintained that the speedy trial clock was suspended on March 12, when Ball asked to be dismissed as Jones’ attorney. Because of that, she argued, the felony charge should not be dismissed.
The speedy trial rule requires that a defendant stand trial within six months of being indicted, though time to deal with court motions and discovery of evidence is excluded. Hughes calculated there were 107 “excludable days” so, given that Jones was indicted on Nov. 28, 2023, she contends the deadline was Sept. 12.