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Defense accuses prosecution in Blagg murder trial of withholding evidence

The alleged violation centered around a letter detailing how former Mesa County Sheriff's investigator Steve King lied during an internal affairs investigation into whether he falsified his time cards.
Credit: Ingram Publishing
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JEFFERSON COUNTY — A key prosecution witness in the Jennifer Blagg murder trial will likely testify Tuesday even though the defense wasn’t given a piece of compromising evidence about him.

“This is a clear discovery violation,” public defender Tina Fang argued Monday morning.

The alleged violation centered around a letter detailing how former Mesa County Sheriff's investigator Steve King lied during an internal affairs investigation into whether he falsified his time cards. It was written in 2014 by then Mesa County Sherif Rebecca Spiess.

King pleaded guilty in 2015 to "unlawfully, feloniously and knowingly" embezzling nearly $5,000 from the sheriff's office and Colorado Mesa University.

The defense knew about King’s conviction; however, Fang told Jefferson County Court Judge Tamra Russell she didn’t know about the internal affairs investigation until she filed a Colorado Open Records request earlier this year.

Fang asked the judge to dismiss the a lesser charge against Michael Blagg for stealing from his employer or exclude King from testifying or allow the defense to call him as a hostile witness. She said all of these would be appropriate punishments, in her mind, for neglecting to give her the letter.

Russell agreed the defense should have been given the letter, but she didn’t see any bad faith on the part of the current prosecutors.

The letter wasn’t given to them, and they didn’t know why it was missing from the Mesa County Prosecutor’s Office.

“Our office administer indicated she did not know why she would not have received it,” Prosecutor Trish Mahre said.

Russell believed Mahre, and said, “I find that the defense does, in fact, have the internal affairs records at this point and has had them for over two months. And I don’t see any prejudice to the defense.”

The prosecution’s case centers around the theory Michael Blagg shot his wife, loaded it in the family minivan and left it in a dumpster at his work. And King is central to that theory.

King interviewed Michael Blagg on multiple occasions, including one interview shortly after Jennifer and 6-year-old Abby Blagg disappeared.

The defense, however, claims a child predator broke into the home after Michael Blagg left for work that day in November 2001, killed his wife and kidnapped the couple’s 6-year-old daughter.

Abby Blagg has never been found, but Jennifer Blagg’s body was found in a landfill in 2002.

King could testify Tuesday, but what he will be allowed to talk about and what the defense will be allowed to ask him is still up for debate.

The prosecution, in an effort to get back on schedule, wants to share only a small part of a November 2001 interview.

Fang wants to use more of that interview to push back on the narrative that the Blaggs were having martial issues, in part, because of Michael Blagg's interest in pornography.

Fang also wants impeach King's credibility by asking him about stealing from the sheriff's office, but Mahre wasn't sure Fang could do that. King's felony conviction was removed from his record following the successful completion of his probation.

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