The defense for the men awaiting trial for the alleged rape of a 9-year-old Uintah County girl in 2016 have filed motions to dismiss the rape case against the men. The rape trials for Jerry Neal Flatlip, Randall Flatlip, and Larson Rondeau are scheduled for May in Salt Lake County’s 3rd District Court. The “Motion to Dismiss” dated February 20th and signed by Loni F. DeLand, defense attorney for Randall Flatlip, moves to “dismiss [the] case on the grounds of intentional prosecutorial misconduct and jury tampering.” DeLand first disagrees with the decision to declare mistrial in Summit County and then outlines instances in which DeLand says an investigator for the Uintah County Attorney’s Office, who is listed as a witness in the trial, communicated with the potential jurors in the lobby
on December 12th.
According to DeLand, one of the potential jurors contacted the Utah Attorney General and the defense lawyers in the days following the mistrial, concerned that what he had witnessed was jury tampering. A “Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss” dated January 22nd and signed by Bryan Sidwell, defense attorney for Jerry Flatlip, makes multiple assertions. First, that there has been an “unreasonable or unconstitutional delay in bringing the defendant to trial.” It also asserts that “the alleged victim’s testimony was not corroborated by other witnesses or physical evidence” and that “there were no injuries and no DNA, therefore the alleged victim’s story is not credible and the case should be dismissed…” The rape of the 9-year-old girl was reported to deputies on March 29th, 2016. Larson Rondeau, Jerry Flatlip, and Randall A. Flatlip each pleaded Not Guilty on rape charges and the three men were ordered to stand trial. The trial was originally moved from Uintah County to Summit County but ended in mistrial in Summit County in December due to failure to seat a jury. The trial was then moved to Salt Lake County.
