RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — The pretrial hearing in the Mercedes Carrera criminal case concerning multiple child sexual abuse charges against her and her husband — which was supposed to happen today at the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse in San Bernardino County, California — has been postponed once again, this time until February 5.
The new court date officially pushes the proceedings to two years without a trial. Carrera and her husband Jason Whitney were arrested after a police raid of their Rancho Cucamonga home on February 1, 2019.
Carrera and Whitney have been in county jail without trial since then, first without bail and later, after they had liquidated their assets and had no source of income due to their incarceration, with bail set at $2 million for each.
The pretrial hearing, the crucial date that would determine the jury selection process and the date of the beginning of the actual trial, has already been postponed numerous times, most recently last month, when it was re-scheduled for today.
The new date of February 5, 2021 — like several previous postponements — appeared online in a document filed today.
The New District Attorney
The document shows the hearing took place today with the second District Attorney on the case, Laura Fragoso, and Public Defender Lee Sonnenberg standing in for Carrera’s court-appointed lawyer, Joshua Castro.
Castro, according to Carrera, who spoke to XBIZ yesterday, is at home following either a COVID-postive test or a possible exposure.
Previous postponements had been requested by Carrera’s public defender and Whitney’s pro bono attorney, who are coordinating their defense strategies. Public Defender Castro has not given any press updates since the start of the pandemic, in spite of repeated attempts to reach him.
Carrera is being held at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, which has been, according to multiple reports, ravaged by COVID-19 cases. Inmates cannot be visited or receive phone calls. The only way to contact inmates is via paper letter, or by waiting for them to make a phone call.
During her phone call with XBIZ yesterday, Carrera indicated that the change of DA sometime last year coincided with a change of approach by her Public Defender, whom she describes as “much friendlier with the new DA than with [Brieann] Durose, the one who filed the charges.”
Durose claimed during the preliminary hearing that the police had collected “evidence” against Carrera and Whitney during the raid, but until now only a recording of her daughter — made at the home of her estranged ex-husband and not in the presence of any child welfare expert — has been presented by the prosecution as state evidence.
Carrera insisted on her innocence yesterday to XBIZ, like she has since their arrest, and said “she’d rather die than take a plea” from DA Fragoso for the heinous sex crimes of which she and her current husband have been accused by the Rancho Cucamonga police and the local district attorney’s office.
For more of XBIZ’s coverage of the Mercedes Carrera case, click here.