• Former sheriff appeared in court Tuesday for motions.
• Judge moves to conceal the online documents in the case.
The attorney for Texas County’s former sheriff has filed multiple motions as he says he is vigorously defending his client and his former chief deputy. Among them are allegations of police misconduct.
The prosecution is contesting what it says is a tactic of trying the case in the public.
Don Trotter, the special prosecutor in the case against James Sigman and Jennifer Tomaszewski, argued his stance Tuesday morning to Judge John Beger inside Courtroom A of the Texas County Justice Center. He said he hasn’t made any statements to the public in the case and wants Jason Coatney to do the same.
“You defend the case in the courtroom, not the public,” Trotter said.
Trotter’s motion to gag Coatney came on the heels of his most recent motion that featured video footage of a search warrant executed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol inside the Texas County Sheriff’s Department. Coatney has talked openly to the media about the case.
“The public has a right to know what is going on and how it will be defended,” Coatney told Beger. “The state just doesn’t like the information being put out there.”
Beger said he will rule on the motion by the weekend. A series of other motions, including another by the state to remove Coatney from the case, will be reviewed Oct. 19.
Beger said he was concerned about facts from the case becoming public. He raised the online security level to 3, which closes information on Casenet.
Sigman and Tomaszewski, who are charged with six identical felony crimes, sat in the courtroom but did not appear before the judge.
ATTORNEY GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE
With a ruling on the motion to silence him pending, Coatney met with media members following the court appearance to discuss the matter. He said the case against Sigman is a “political assassination.”
A report from a patrol investigator said Sigman allowed Tomaszewski, who he engaged in an ongoing romantic relationship, to impersonate an officer on multiple occasions, threaten bodily harm to others and physically abuse inmates.
“I don’t understand any of this. I’m not certain why any law enforcement officer would listen to these allegations the way they’ve been presented,” Coatney said. “In my estimation, this is an investigation in search of a crime. The discovery I’ve been provided thus far reinforces that. They are looking for any little thing they can find and saying, ‘That’s criminal activity.'”
Coatney said he plans to file a motion of prosecution misconduct in the coming days.
“I’m not going to go into that right now,” he said. “It’s not the current prosecutor (Trotter), I’ll put it that way. There is no problem with the current prosecutor.”
Coatney told Beger he will continue his defense of being able to speak publicly about the case in written commentary he will provide the judge. Among his arguments in open court was the fact he says Sigman and Tomaszewski have been “publicly demeaned.”
He said he disagrees with the decision to close online records.
“The public should know what is going on,” he said.
ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE MISCONDUCT
On Friday, Coatney submitted video evidence to Texas County Circuit Court as part of an 11-page motion on behalf of Sigman and Tomaszewski. Both are free on $500,000 bond but had their licenses immediately suspended by the director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.
The indictment against Sigman and Tomaszewski alleges that during the May 29 execution of a search warrant by the Missouri State Highway Patrol at the Texas County Sheriff’s Department, a file was missing from the folder of a mentally challenged inmate who had been assaulted Feb. 14 in the jail. The patrol said it was a looking for a handwritten report from a facility nurse, Wanda Etchason, who had observed the inmate after he had allegedly been assaulted by Tomaszewski.
The incident is one of several outlined in the July 18 indictment.
By the time troopers arrived for the search, the file documenting the incident had been altered and Etchason’s detailed report had disappeared, authorities said. The nurse told investigations she was alarmed at the injuries and worked to document them in a file in the medical office and the jail. The nurse reported the young man had contusions on his head and face, two black eyes and minor lacerations. Jailers said he had been unconscious. Etchason said she had created an anatomical sketch to also document the injuries.
Coatney says the file was missing because investigators and a nurse engaged in criminal conduct.
In the motion, Coatney said Sigman and two troopers entered the medical office at 9:33 a.m. to search for the medical/jail file of the inmate in question. He said the search ended six minutes later with the file not discovered. But video footage, Coatney alleges, shows Trooper Travis Hitchcock locating the file but not disclosing to Sigman or the other trooper that it had been located.
Coatney said trooper Daniel Nash, who had allegedly spoken to Hitchcock after he exited the medical office, requested access to the room at 9:56 a.m. He said Nash walked where the inmate’s file was located and removed documents from the file. Coatney said Nash created a separate file and replaced an altered file of the inmate back in the location where he had removed the original.
Nash left the room at 10 a.m. with the new file containing only a portion of the inmate’s medical file, the motion alleges.
“I would love to hear a legitimate law enforcement reason why that was done,” Coatney said.
The following morning, Coatney said Etchason was observed on video with the file created by Nash as well as the original medical file in the medical office. The court motion said Etchason left the facility at 1:49 p.m. with the original inmate file.
“(The inmate’s) file is now missing and presumed destroyed by Nurse Etchason,” Coatney wrote in his motion.
Etchason on Friday afternoon referred questions to her legal counsel in Rolla, which issued a response: “At this time we do not have any comment on the wild allegations put forth by Mr. Sigman’s and Ms. Tomaszewski’s defense attorney.”
Coatney said he is eager for a response from Etchson and all authorities involved.
“Those people will be disposed and put under oath. Maybe they’ll tell the truth,” he said. “I doubt it, but we’ll see.”
MOTION SAYS SIGMAN WASN’T PRESENT AT SEARCH WARRANT EXECUTION
As part of another motion filed last week, Coatney said four counts that are allegedly to have occurred June 30, 2017, would have been on a day that Sigman was out of the county attending a funeral. According to the petition, then Chief Deputy Travis Davis was the commanding officer of the sheriff’s department that day.
The paperwork said Davis advised Sigman the he was short-handed and would use two law enforcement school candidates, Tomaszewski and Jason Wink, who were attending a West Plains academy and had associations with the department. Coatney contends Tomaszewski is immune from prosecution and Sigman wasn’t there.
The probable cause statement from the patrol alleged Tomaszewski participated in the execution of the search warrant on Steffens Street. Multiple officers, including members of the South Central Drug Task Force, told a patrol investigator that Sigman was present and allowed Tomaszewski to act inappropriately.
Authorities said Tomaszewski was dressed in a uniform similar to other members of the sheriff’s department at the scene. The patrol said Tomaszewski pointed a firearm at five bystanders, including a 1-year-old. The patrol said the individuals were not suspects and lived across the street. Tomaszewski confronted them, authorities said, because she believed they were video recording officers and taking photos.
One member of the task force told the patrol he intervened when Tomaszewski had a male on the ground and was attempting to arrest him with one hand while pointing a firearm in the back of the person’s head.
Tomaszewski was a jailer at the time. She was named jail administrator in July 2017.
Davis left the department in January 2018.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY REMOVAL SOUGHT
The special prosecutor’s team filed documents last Wednesday stating Coatney’s joint representation of the defendants raises several ethical and legal concerns and it asks the court to order the attorney to withdraw.
“(Special) Prosecutor (Don) Trotter has informed Coatney of the nature of potential plea offers in the case; and the interests of defendants Sigman and Tomaszewski are not aligned,” assistant prosecutor Joe Wantuck writes.
In a court filing, Sigman asked the court to allow him to have contact with the co-defendant, Tomaszewski, through counsel for a joint defense agreement. They were previously barred from any contact.
SIGMAN’S RETURN PURSUED BY HIS ATTORNEY
Coatney seeks to have bond conditions changed so that Sigman can return to his post as the chief law enforcement officer in Texas County. He argues that Sigman is the “duly elected Sheriff of Texas County, Missouri,” he has not resigned, Rowdy Douglas was illegally appointed by the Texas County Commission and Sigman has answered questions related to a move to oust him and plans to assert a vigorous defense.
The Texas County Commission removed Sigman from its payroll on July 24.
Sigman asks the court to lift orders preventing him from being on Texas County property, “which prevents him from executing