Honeycutt, Cox trial changes venue again

Thursday morning, it was a new judge in a new courtroom in a new city for a three-year-old case, when former Hesperia Mayor Tad Honeycutt and Steven Cox appeared in a pre-trial hearing in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court.

The two were originally arrested and indicted in Sept. 4, 2007 on 117 felony charges between them, related to alleged illegal transactions between Cox’s California Charter Academy and a for-profit subsidiary run by Honeycutt.

Since then, the case has been the victim of both the massive amount of work required for defense attorneys to mount a defense and Honeycutt family connections.

The former mayor is the third member of his family to serve the city as an elected official, serving a Hesperia City Councilman from 2000 to 2008. His father, Theron, was a councilman from 1991 to 1995. His mother, Kathleen, represented the 34th Assembly District in the California State Legislature from 1993 to 1994. Honeycutt was also active for years in Victor Valley Republican politics, raising funds that ultimately helped a number of elected officials into office.

Those connections caused one judge after another in Victorville Superior Court to recuse themselves, and the case was ultimately moved down the Cajon Pass to Fontana Superior Court in May of this year.

In pre-trial appearances in Fontana, Judge Art Harrison indicated his frustration with the long delay between indictment and trial, but the case was moved out of his courtroom, because his wife works in the same office as Deputy District Attorney Michael Fermin, who is prosecuting the case, although Harrison’s wife does not directly report to him.

So now, the case moved to Rancho Cucamonga, where it landed, at least temporarily, in the courtroom of Judge Jon Ferguson. But there’s another hurdle: Cox’s public defender, Earl Shinder, died of a gunshot wound in Apple Valley on Sunday, and the Rancho Cucamonga public defender’s office has not yet assigned a new attorney to his case.

And once one is, they’ll have a lot of catching up to do: Prior to Cox and Honeycutt being arrested, a grand jury heard from more than 90 witnesses in the summer of 2007 and Fermin’s case includes more than 52,000 pages of documents, to say nothing of any documents Cox’s and Honeycutt’s attorneys may introduce into evidence. (Honeycutt is represented by the office of San Bernardino attorney Grover Porter.)

And the pair may still not yet have found the judge who will finally hear their case: Ferguson told the court that there are “a number of things” that might prevent him from presiding over the trial, but did not elaborate on Thursday.

The pair is next scheduled to appear in Ferguson’s courtroom on Jan. 5.

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 760-956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Hesperia.Star.