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Eteuati: I'm not guilty / Bench trial set for December
By JESSE FRUHWIRTHFARMINGTON -- A date was set Thursday for a bench trial for Weber State University football standout Bryant Eteuati, whose attorney said some insinuations made about his client have been unfair.
"(Media reports) have made it sound ... like my client has been avoiding prosecution, and that's just not the case," Deven Coggins said.
Eteuati pleaded not guilty Thursday to each of his charges. A trial date of Dec. 10 was scheduled.
Eteuati faces a felony aggravated assault charge as well as misdemeanor failure to remain at the scene of an accident. Kaysville Police say he drove his car into a group of people after a fight July 1, injuring one.
In a separate case, Layton Police say Eteuati helped his friends shoplift from a store where he worked. He faces a misdemeanor fraud charge for that.
Coggins did not cite any news story in particular that was unfair to his client, but said emphatically that Eteuati did not know about the charges in the present cases until he was pulled over by an officer in Ogden on Oct. 22. Eteuati was booked on warrants at that time, but has since made bail.
Eteuati received a traffic citation after the incident in Kaysville, Coggins said, and until he was arrested in Ogden on a warrant, he had no way of knowing authorities were trying to contact him again.
"My client was on the football field ... I don't think he was hiding," he said sarcastically.
Regarding other past warrants revealed by the Standard-Examiner for unpaid fines and failures to appear in court on misdemeanor charges and citations that Eteuati received, Coggins said that's just "an immature college kid not paying his fines."
Eteuati could avoid trial in the fraud case because prosecutors may have filed a warrant too late. In that case, prosecutors filed the charge and issued a summons for his appearance in September 2007. When Eteuati was not found to be served the summons, Coggins said, prosecutors had the option to file a warrant for his arrest then. Court records show that they didn't. Prosecutors filed a warrant for that case only this month after a summons for the Kaysville case was also returned to prosecutors unserved.
Coggins plans to argue in a motion that pursuing the fraud charge now violates Eteuati's right to a speedy trial.
Prosecutor Ryan Poll told 2nd District Judge Thomas L. Kay that he has 15 named witnesses plus three police officers involved in the July 1 fight in Kaysville, but has not determined yet which would be most helpful to a trial.
Coggins urged Poll and Kay to accept a trial date of Nov. 25, hoping for as early a trial date as possible. Kay cited the proximity of that date to Thanksgiving and the difficulties that might cause in subpoenaing witnesses.
Asked after the hearing if he was rushing the case to get Eteuati back on the football field, Coggins paused for a moment, but said the issue is larger than that.
"My client wants his name cleared," Coggins said.
Eteuati's trial date is currently scheduled in the middle of post-season playoff games. He has been suspended from play indefinitely since his arrest.
He is scheduled to be back in court for a pretrial conference Thursday.
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Im' just wondering about all those little innocents in the park that were trying to beat him up. I don't think we are getting the whole story!
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