Defense attorneys and state prosecutors on Friday dealt with another false start in the case of three men set to stand trial for a 2013 Aspen Hill homicide. Technical problems forced a pretrial hearing be delayed for the third time.
Trevon Derick Davis, 28, of Hyattsville, Bryan Donte Byrd, 28, of Washington, D.C., and Vaughn Darvel Bellamy, 28, of Hagerstown, face murder charges in the death of 34-year-old Alexander Benson Buie.
Police believe Buie’s death was the result of mistaken identity, as Byrd and Bellamy intended to rob another man who previously lived in the home where the incident occurred. Buie was the only current occupant who resembled the intended target and was shot multiple times in a struggle.
The three men were charged in March and indicted by a grand jury in April. The original pretrial hearing was scheduled for June 21, but was pushed back when Byrd and Bellamy were assigned attorneys.
When the rescheduled date of July 12 rolled around, Byrd’s and Bellamy’s attorneys had only just gotten involved with the case.
The hearing was pushed back again to Friday, but “voluminous” discovery evidence and a technical mishap led to the parties still not being prepared, Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office Deputy Chief Mary Herdman said.
Two of the defense teams said they received hard drives of the discovery evidence with missing information, Herdman said. Drives returned to the office were sent to Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney John Lalos, who is on vacation, and Herdman can’t locate them.
A technician will need to figure out what the drives are missing and issue complete versions to defense attorneys, Herdman said.
With portions of discovery evidence unavailable to some attorneys, all three defense teams agreed to move the preliminary hearing a third time. All parties will return to court on Aug. 9.
“What concerns me is we are getting closer and closer to the trial date,” Circuit Court Judge James Bonifant said before agreeing to reschedule the hearing.
Bonifant asked the parties “to be aware” of the Oct. 22 try-by date.
State law requires that a defendant be tried within 180 days of his/her initial appearance before the court, unless good cause is shown for delaying the proceedings.
Byrd is out on $150,000 bond and appeared in the courtroom on Friday.
Davis and Bellamy are being held without bond, and the latter was not taken to court for the hearing. Davis appeared in a dark green prison jumpsuit.
Charlie Wright can be reached at charlie.wright@moco360.media
