WINCHESTER, IN — An attorney for a Randolph County woman charged with seducing a high school student is seeking a gag order against the Union City Police Department’s director of public safety — along with a public apology and $10,000.
Alicia S. Hughes, 31, was charged Feb. 17 in Randolph Circuit Court with five counts of child seduction, a Level 5 felony carrying up to six years in prison.
The Lynn woman is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student at Union City Junior-Senior High School, where Hughes worked as a secretary.
After her arrest, the Union City Police Department released a video that showed a portion of Hughes’ interrogation by a Union City officer. The video then appeared on many websites, including one belonging to a tabloid publication in England.
Randolph County Prosecutor David Daly announced he had nothing to do with the video’s release, saying he was “committed to obtaining a fair trial in this case and to avoid prejudicing Ms. Hughes’ right to a fair trial.”
Mark Ater, the Union City Police Department’s director of public safety, acknowledged his department had released the video.
“The release was lawful, measured and deliberate,” he told The Star Press. “The portion disclosed contained no admission of criminal conduct.”
“The department exercised restraint and ensured no protected information was disclosed,” Ater said.
Hughes’ attorney, David M. Jordan of Richmond, filed a motion calling Ater’s release of the video “an injustice of magnanimous proportion.”
“For his own selfish reasons, (Ater) had impeded the defendant’s right to a fair trial, led the public to believe there are multiple alleged victims, and drawn attention to the defendant’s request for a lawyer,” Jordan wrote.
The Richmond attorney said he had determined there had been “millions of combined views of the media accounts containing the defendant’s interrogation footage.”
Jordan asked that Randolph Circuit Court Judge Jay Toney schedule an “expedited hearing” and to order “Mark Ater, and the Union City Police Department, not to release any other evidence or statements to the media” about his client’s case “without prior approval of the court.”
Jordan also asked that Ater be ordered to issue a public apology to Harris and the Randolph County prosecutor’s office “for releasing the interrogation video.”
The attorney also asked that Ater be ordered to pay Jordan’s office “not less than $10,000” for “the time and effort his law firm has spent collecting evidence for the gag order and presenting the matter to the court.”
A hearing on Jordan’s motion has not yet been scheduled.
Hughes’ trial is set for June 15.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Attorney for woman charged with seduction seeks gag order, apology
Reporting by Douglas Walker, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
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