OGDEN — The 16-year-old boy accused in a plot to blow up Roy High School has been released to his parents.
Police arrested Roy High students Joshua Kyler Hoggan and Dallin Morgan, 18, on Jan. 25 after two students went to authorities with concerns about text messages from Hoggan detailing plans to set off a bomb at a school assembly.
“After a hearing on Mr. Hoggan’s detention status, the court finds that it is appropriate to release him to the custody of his parents,” Utah courts spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said after a Friday hearing before 2nd District Juvenile Judge Janice Frost that was closed to the press and public.
Hoggan spent about a month in a juvenile detention facility on a charge of possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
Police have said the two have admitted to plans to set off a device in early February, after which they were to steal a plane at Ogden-Hinckley Airport and fly to a country with no extradition treaty with the U.S.
Morgan faces the same charge in adult court. A conviction carries a sentence of five years to life in prison. Both have been banned from any school campuses by the Weber County School District.
Prosecutors intend to convince Frost to certify Hoggan to stand trial as an adult at a May 10-11 hearing.
Morgan’s status conference this week before 2nd District Judge Michael Lyon was continued to March 29.
Attorneys on both sides agreed to the delay to allow completion of forensic work by an FBI lab on computers linked to Morgan and Hoggan before scheduling Morgan’s preliminary hearing, likely to be the first in-court airing of the evidence in the case.
Frost, before closing Friday’s hearing, told Deputy Weber County Attorney Letitia Toombs and Hoggan’s lawyer Scott Nickle she was leaning toward possibly opening the May hearing.
“There are issues where I might be inclined to open the hearing,” she said.
She set a March 22 date for arguments on a media motion seeking to open the Hoggan hearings to the public filed by Mike O’Brien, an attorney representing the KSL, KUTV and FOX television channels. Frost allowed O’Brien to sit in on the hearing on condition he not disclose any of the proceedings to his clients.
O’Brien had asked to attend the hearing so he could be conversant with the concerns in the case while volunteering to keep them confidential for the time being.
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