Judge to Decide Whether to Remain on Haidl Case

An Orange County judge said Tuesday he would decide within 10 days if he would recuse himself from a statutory rape case involving an assistant sheriff’s son or ask an out-of-county magistrate to settle the matter.

Attorneys for Gregory Haidl, 19, asked Judge Luis A. Rodriguez to remove himself from the case because he signed a search warrant they say was illegal.

Haidl’s lawyers said that if Rodriguez did not recuse himself, they would appeal his decision.

Haidl is also awaiting a second trial in a high-profile case in which he and two friends are accused of raping an unconscious girl during a summer party in 2002. Jurors in that case deadlocked on all 24 counts against the trio.

Also Monday, Rodriguez scheduled a motions hearing for Oct. 8.

In the statutory rape case, defense attorneys have requested, among other things, to subpoena the nine deputies who responded to the house where Haidl is believed to have had sex with a girl nearly three years younger than he.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jana Hoffman declined to comment about the recusal motion, citing a federal lawsuit the girl’s parents have filed alleging that prosecutors unlawfully obtained a saliva sample from her.

The search warrant for the saliva sample is the basis for Haidl’s recusal motion.

The girl has said that the July sex was consensual and she did not want Haidl prosecuted.