Valerie Perfect Hayes and co-defendant Gary Blake Reburn have been granted separate trials following a ruling on arguments made during a September pretrial hearing in Charlottesville federal court.
Valerie Hayes is the alleged ringleader of a 2018 conspiracy to kidnap five children from two respective Old Order Mennonite families before executing their parents. The plan came to an end when the first mother was able to escape the house and call 911 while her husband was being held at gunpoint in the basement by Frank Amnott, who later entered into a plea agreement and will testify at the trial. His wife, Jennifer Amnott, has also pled guilty and will testify.
ICYMI
- Mennonite kidnapping, murder conspiracy case continues in federal court
- Update: Plea agreement, new information in Valerie Hayes abduction case
- How we got here: Summary of U.S. v. Valerie Hayes, the ‘Mennonite kidnapping’ case
- Valerie Hayes case: Judge sorting through legal issues in Mennonite kidnapping
- Old Order Mennonite families from the Valley have begun an exodus to Esmont
The initial plan was for Jennifer Amnott to watch Hayes’ three daughters in her Maryland home while her husband and Hayes drove to Rockingham County’s Old Order community. When the first of two alleged kidnap-and-kill efforts at the firs house failed, Hayes asked Reburn, her then-boyfriend, to join the effort for “an extra set of eyes and hands.”
Reburn stated through a motion submitted by his attorney that there “is not even a scintilla of evidence” that Reburn was aware of the conspiracy.
“The government alleges that Ms. Hayes lied to Frank Amnott, Jennifer Amnott, and Gary Reburn about material, substantial facts about her life and her motives regarding the charged conspiracies. A very small number of those lies were that Hayes worked as a secret government operative, that, because of her work, her life was regularly in peril, and that she and Reburn had multiple children together.”
Reburn maintains that “only upon discovery review did he come to understand Hayes had been engaged in a complex confidence game to manipulate him for money and other reasons, ultimately planning to blame him for the charged offenses if necessary.”
Hayes then entered her own severance motion.
“Mr. Reburn, through counsel, has adopted a defense which includes doing all in his power to attack his co-defendant, Ms. Hayes, and to persuade the jury by reference to past wrongful acts that Ms. Hayes was the kingpin in this conspiracy.”
Reburn’s defense will include evidence showing what his attorney calls a pattern of lying to set up romantic partners. Hayes’ first husband, Douglas Stanley, says Hayes tried to frame him for at least two acts of child abuse during their brief marriage that ended in 2003. In 2014, Hayes accused then-husband Robert Hayes of rape and torture. She later admitted to investigators that she had lied.
“[I]f this Court does not sever these defendants, it will be faced throughout a joint trial to make a choice of either curtailing Reburn’s defense, which would prejudice Reburn or allowing Reburn to introduce inflammatory and prejudicial evidence which will prejudice Ms. Hayes. Therefore, severance will result in increased judicial economy. More importantly, it will allow both defendants to receive a fair trial where the mandatory penalty is life in prison.”
Chief United State District Judge Elizabeth Dillon granted Hayes’ and Reburn’s motions in a Nov. 5 opinion and order.
“The court does not conclude at this juncture that all (or even most) of this evidence is necessarily admissible, even if Reburn were tried by himself. But some of it will be admitted, and much of it is evidence that is central to his defense of being manipulated by Hayes and set up by her to be an unwitting participant in the charged crimes. And nearly all of it is evidence that would be prejudicial to Hayes if she and Reburn were tried jointly and it were admitted at trial against her.
“Despite the preference for joint trials, and the obvious judicial efficiencies that joint trials usually serve, the court has a duty to ensure that every defendant receives a fair trial.”
Hayes’ trial will begin as scheduled on Feb. 1 and could last as long as four weeks. Judge Dillon’s order cited several reasons, including rulings in two similar cases.
“First, most of the prejudicial evidence that concerns the court is likely to be admitted in Reburn’s trial, not in Hayes’s. The possibility of tainting the jury pool by any news coverage of that information, making it more difficult to select an impartial jury for the second defendant, would be lessened if it is not presented in the first trial.”
“Further, Hayes was named as the first defendant in the indictment, and based on the information before the court and forecasted evidence, it appears that Reburn is alleged to have been the last person to join either alleged conspiracy. In both Walker and McCabe, the courts determined that the “primary defendant” in the indictment should be tried first.”
Witnesses in Hayes’ trial include her three daughters, who were taken along when Hayes, Reburn and Jennifer Amnott fled to Scotland, where Hayes’ daughters have chosen to stay. The court will allow recorded testimony during the first trial to be used at the second trial so they and any other out-of-country witnesses will not have to return.
The judge ordered counsel for the United States and counsel for Reburn to pick the earliest possible date for Reburn’s trial.
The next hearing in the trial will be held on Dec. 3 in Charlottesville, where Hayes and Reburn are being held.
Support AFP
Share
