Today’s status hearing in American Fork went badly for those of us who support holding David Lee Hamblin accountable for his alleged misdeeds. The Utah County Attorneys Office (UCAO) did not send anyone to the hearing, after the May 9th decision by the Court of Appeals upholding Judge Roger Griffin’s ruling that the UCAO could not take over the prosecution of the Hamblin case. That decision remains unpublished on the Court of Appeals website.
The rundown is as follows:
Hamblin’s attorney Leah Aston moved for the immediate dismissal of the Hamblin case for failure to prosecute, on the grounds that there is no prosecutor of record, and that Hamblin has been awaiting trial since September 2022. Additionally, UCAO has not communicated any plans with Aston or Judge Griffin about what their intentions are going forward.
Judge Griffin indicated that he is inclined to dismiss the case in thirty days time if there is no other agency entering an appearance as prosecutor, either at the level of a county prosecutor or at the level of the State Attorney General’s Office.
The hearing will resume at 12:30 p.m. today, where the issue of Hamblin’s pretrial release conditions will be addressed. UCAO Attorney Jared Perkins, who was roped into the matter due to his presence in Judge Griffin’s court on another matter and Jeff Gray and Chad Grunander’s failure to communicate anything at all to Judge Griffin or Leah Aston, will be present at that hearing on behalf of UCAO.
The reality is this: in a case with two eyewitnesses, Rachel and Eliza Hamblin, who were present during the abuse of the victim, Emily Sheets, the UCAO has failed yet again to successfully prosecute David Lee Hamblin in a timely fashion. Even though the defense made a significant tactical error in bringing up the 2012-2014 case against Hamblin, which would have opened the door for the prosecution to play the tape of Hamblin apologizing to his daughter for raping her, the prosecution has failed to take Hamblin to trial. Even with the 2003 custody trial’s findings of fact and rulings of law which found by clear and convincing evidence that Hamblin had sexually abused his two eldest daughters Rachel and Eliza, the prosecution has failed for the second consecutive time to bring David Lee Hamblin to a trial.
The fact that Hamblin’s second victim is a young man who Hamblin began abusing during his time as a five year old therapy patient, which opens the door for the State to bring forth Hamblin’s own admissions to having sex with his patients as a clinical psychologist-which led to the loss of his license to practice-the State has yet again failed to successfully prosecute David Lee Hamblin. In simple terms, two open and shut cases with more than enough evidence to convict David Lee Hamblin will never see a trial date nor a jury.
Over the course of the year plus that Special Prosecutor Ryan Peters oversaw the case, the defense was able to obtain the following:
Communications between the Utah County Sheriffs employees working the Hamblin case in which they called into question the credibility of Rachel and Eliza Hamblin, thereby undermining their efforts in the current case involving Emily Sheets. In essence, these law enforcement professionals did the job of the defense attorneys for them, providing an assist to David Lee Hamblin.
Communications in which the sheriffs department bemoaned having to turn over exculpatory evidence as part of discovery, which yet again made the lives of Michael Petro and Leah Aston exponentially easier in their quest to exonerate or deliver David Lee Hamblin from criminal culpability.
Admissions by the sheriffs department that they were communicating the developments in the case to Roselle Stevenson, David Hamblin’s ex-wife and alleged accomplice in the abuse of Emily Sheets. These communications formed the basis for the defense to later access the records in the prior two points.
The defense was not able to obtain the full discovery file because the prosecution repeatedly slow-walked the case, failing to deliver discovery despite the orders of Judge Griffin and Judge Larsen with respect to the discovery file. The reason the defense was able to obtain communications that would have otherwise been privileged for the prosecution was the incompetent manner in which the employees at the Utah County Sheriff’s Office managed to open the door for Roselle Stevenson by talking about confidential developments within their case with Roselle Stevenson. Rachel and Eliza Hamblin were likely unaware of the fact that the law enforcement professionals they were speaking to were divulging the conversations to their mother, who they accused of perpetrating daily sexual abuse against them in 2012.
Governor Spencer Cox chose the sole deputized special prosecutor in the Hamblin case, Ryan Peters, as his nominee for a judgeship. Prior to the Hamblin case being transferred from Provo to Manti in the case of Hamblin’s male victim Tobias Schroeder, Cox had nominated Judge Mandy Larsen, who has now recused herself from the case due to the fact that she carpooled with Utah County Deputy Attorney Chad Grunander twenty years ago as a law clerk bailiff. That admission did not emerge until April 2024, even though Larsen has been presiding over the case since its inception in 2022, and the case originated in Utah County. As such, the Manti case no longer has a judge, and if the defense attorney in Hamblin’s Manti case is successful in his motion to disqualify the UCAO, it will also lack a prosecutor.
Even if the UCAO finds another county attorney willing to take the case, the reality is that the county attorney in question will have to play catch up on nearly two years of developments. The replacement prosecutor will also inherit a procedural disaster in terms of the discovery issues, thanks to the manner in which Ryan Peters handled the case from its inception. That alone is a logical explanation for why no other county attorney has stepped forward to take up the responsibility of salvaging the Hamblin cases, given how badly Peters and others have mismanaged the case.
Investigations in Ritual Abuse will continue the work regardless of what happens in thirty days time. It is our position that David Lee Hamblin is guilty of sexually abusing his patients, his own children, and likely other victims as well. The Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing agreed with us on the first point; the court in Hamblin’s custody trial agreed with us on the second point; and we intend to find a court to persuade of the third point regardless of what happens in 30 days in American Fork and Manti.
It is a damning indictment of the state of affairs in Utah when a child rapist can evade criminal culpability even with a taped apology for raping his own daughter, which is what happened in 2014. It is an even more damning indictment of the state of affairs in Utah when that same man can evade criminal culpability for repeatedly sexually abusing another child, with two eyewitnesses to the abuse, which is what is on the verge of occurring in 2024. Those two eyewitnesses provided testimony and evidence to a court in a 2003 custody trial, and the court believed them and found by clear and convincing evidence that David Lee Hamblin had sexually abused them. Rachel and Eliza Hamblin, as well as Emily Sheets and Tobias Schroeder, deserved and deserve their day in court. They deserve to see David Lee Hamblin face culpability for his actions.
When a compromised governor who is controlled by those with knowledge of his proclivities intercedes in a criminal case to remove the prosecutor, it speaks for itself. That same governor has taken position after position that defies common sense and the ideological position of his own party, often waffling back and forth. There is no conflict of interest with respect to the Utah County Attorneys Office taking up the prosecution of David Lee Hamblin. David Leavitt is no longer the Utah County Attorney, and no one in his office handled the investigation of Hamblin in its initial stages. Whatever conflict might have existed in the early stages of the case dissipated the moment David Leavitt left office, yet Judge Roger Griffin disqualified the UCAO from prosecuting the case. He was upheld in his ruling by the Utah Court of Appeals.
David Lee Hamblin has no reason to talk about the people he trafficked his children to, or the accomplices he sexually abused and allegedly murdered others with, because he is not facing prison. Nearly two years after he was arrested, he is on the cusp of evading criminal culpability for yet another set of allegations of sexual abuse. This speaks for itself. The case against Hamblin has diminished odds to see a jury, to be determined on the facts and the evidence, solely due to Ryan Peters refusing to bring Hamblin to trial in an expedient fashion. With two eyewitnesses and an opening to admit the taped apology for rape into evidence in the case against David Lee Hamblin, Ryan Peters failed to bring Hamblin to trial quickly and secure a conviction.
Instead, Peters wrangled around with Hamblin’s attorneys for over a year, received a judgeship from Governor Cox for his troubles, and then moved to transfer the case back to the Utah County Attorneys Office on his way out. Six months after his nomination to a judgeship, the effort of Judge Griffin to remove the Utah County Attorneys Office as a prosecutor reached its culmination. The case has no prosecutor. In Manti, the case has no judge, and will likely have no prosecutor in time.
If the case against Hamblin was so weak, then a trial would not have been any issue. The case was strong enough to overcome multiple motions to dismiss by the defense, and yet it is on the cusp of being dismissed for failure to prosecute owing to the lack of a prosecutor. If it is dismissed, it will not be due to the lack of merit in terms of the accusations made by Emily Sheets and Tobias Schroeder, both of whom have waited for nearly two years to tell their story to a jury. It will be due to the utter corruption and incompetence of the judicial system in Utah, which is on full display for the world to see. We will be in attendance at the 12:30 p.m. hearing before Judge Griffin to determine what the next steps will be.
This is sickening