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Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin (WTHR screenshot) and Richard Allen (Carroll County Detention Center)
Prosecutors in the case of the man accused of murdering two teen girls in Delphi, Indiana, want defense lawyers to be punished for a year-old leak of information about the case to the public.
Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rozzi should be held in contempt of court, Carroll Count Prosecutor Nick McLeland said in a filing on Monday. The lawyers represent Richard Allen, the man accused of the 2017 slayings of Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and her friend Liberty “Libby” German, 14, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off the Delphi Historic Trails system.
According to the motion, Rozzi and Baldwin should be held “in direct contempt” for allegedly leaking information about the case to the public despite the existence of a protective order. As Law&Crime previously reported, that leak was linked to Rozzi and Baldwin quitting the case — although the lawyers ended up being reinstated earlier this month after they reversed course and asked the Indiana Supreme Court to be put back on the case.
The leak came when a former colleague of Rozzi’s — who has since been arrested and charged — allegedly took photographs of evidence displayed on the table of a conference room in Rozzi’s law office.
An investigation into the leak “shows that Defense Counsel failed to secure evidence and discovery materials in this case, specifically graphic crime scene photos, which were then distributed to the public and put on the internet in violation of the Court order dated February 17th, 2023, and evidence supports a conclusion that the disclosure was ongoing,” the filing says.
Prosecutors said that the leaked photos have been devastating to the victims’ families.
“[T]he State was notified in the beginning of the ‘leak’ by the Defense by the families of the victims,” the filing says. “Since that time, the State has had an opportunity to talk to the families of the victims about the photos and information that was ‘leaked.’ The amount of harm and revictimization that this has caused the families of the victims is unmeasurable and incurable.”
The multiple leaks from the defense side “show a trend by Defense Counsels Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin of not being completely honest with the Court, violating the Court’s Gag Order set in place to protect the integrity of the case, and failing to comply with the Protective Order put in place to protect the discovery in this case,” prosecutors’ filing said.
The filing is just the latest in a series of bizarre twists surrounding the high-profile Delphi murders case.
Murder victims Abby and Libby vanished while walking the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what once was the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle.
Read the prosecutors’ motion, via For Wayne news station WPTA, here.
