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BY JOE CARLSON
jcarlson@nwitimes.com
219.662.5339 | Thursday, May 31, 2007 | (No comments posted.)
Matthew Hensley argues that the discovery of a stained photo of a female high school basketball player is not relevant to his child sex-enticement case.
Hensley, a former part-time assistant basketball coach at Andrean High School, is charged in Hammond federal court with using an Internet chatroom to entice a 13-year-old girl for sex. The person chatting online with Hensley was actually an undercover police officer.
After he was arrested last year, police seized a large photograph of one of the sophomore Andrean basketball players. That photo was stained with what Hensley, of Valparaiso, admitted was his own bodily fluids, prosecutors allege.
In court filings this week, Hensley claims the photo is not relevant and should not be introduced at the trial, which is scheduled for July.
Hensley's motion states that the unidentified woman in the photo is older than 13, which makes it irrelevant to a case in which Hensley is charged with trying to sexually entice a 13 year old.
"This...will not only unfairly prejudice this defendant by attempting to humiliate him publicly for a private act but will confuse the issues," defense attorney Alex Woloshansky wrote.
Woloshansky already has successfully convinced a federal judge to toss out statements that Hensley made to investigators the day he was arrested in a statewide sting.
U.S. District Judge Philip Simon said Hensley was subjected to a "textbook violation" of the right to an attorney when detectives told him he was more likely to be held in jail without bond if he refused to be interviewed without an attorney present.
Hensley is in jail awaiting trial. He has been denied requests for release on bond three times.
Court records state that Hensley had a graphic sexual on-line "chat" with an agent, which included a promise to demonstrate when the two met in person.
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