SNOW HILL — The case against a local man indicted on 55 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography continues to move forward this week after a motion challenging an alleged anomaly in the timeline of the grand jury indictment was denied.
In January, Jarrett John Wise, 52, of Ocean City, was indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury on five counts of felony distribution of child pornography and 50 total counts of possession of child pornography. The case was presented to the Worcester County grand jury by Dorchester County State’s Attorney Bill Jones, who has been appointed as special prosecutor in the case.
Because Wise had been a local law enforcement officer in Ocean City and Worcester County for 13 years before embarking on a real estate career, Worcester County State’s Attorney Kris Heiser requested Jones be appointed special prosecutor in the case to avoid any appearance of conflict or impropriety in the case against Wise.
However, just when Jones was appointed special prosecutor in relation to the presentation of evidence to the Worcester County grand jury and the ultimate indictment was called into question by Wise’s defense counsel, Pete Wimbrow III. Wimbrow filed a motion last week seeking a dismissal in the case because Jones had allegedly not yet been formally appointed special prosecutor when he presented the case to the grand jury.
Wise was indicted by the grand jury on Jan. 28, which was the same day Heiser reportedly recused herself and filed a petition with the court to have Jones appointed special prosecutor. However, the motion to dismiss alleged the case was presented to the Worcester County grand jury about two hours before that petition was filed.
The motion also alleges Jones was not formally appointed as special prosecutor until the following day, or a full day after the grand jury indicted Wise. Because of that alleged timeline anomaly, the defense asserted the grand jury indictment of Wise should appropriately be dismissed.
“Clearly, Mr. Jones, not being a resident of Worcester County, was not eligible to be and was not elected to be the state’s attorney for this county,” the motion read. “Therefore, until such time as he was appointed by the court, he had no authority to present a case to the Worcester County grand jury. In fact, he had no authority to be in the presence of the grand jury, since he had no standing other than that of an ordinary citizen, who is prohibited from intruding into grand jury proceedings.”
The motion cites other case law in which cases were dismissed for similar alleged timeline anomalies.
“Since the state’s attorney for Dorchester County had not been appointed to represent the state in the Circuit Court for Worcester County until after the indictment was returned, he was unauthorized to be present before the grand jury during the inquiry leading up to the indictment,” the motion read. “The remedy for this transgression is dismissal of the indictment.”
For those reasons, the motion asserted the only recourse was to revoke the indictment and dismiss the case against Wise.
“Since the proceedings to the Worcester County Grand Jury having been tainted by the presence of the State’s Attorney for Dorchester County during its investigation and deliberation, the resulting indictment must be dismissed,” the motion read.
However, the motion to dismiss the case over the alleged grand jury indictment timeline anomaly was denied this week. A motions hearing has been set for April 23 and the trial is scheduled to begin on June 22.
