• Aug 24, 2012
  • KSN TV
  • -
  • by Craig Andres

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has overturned the capital murder conviction and ordered a new trial for the man sentenced to death for killing a Greenwood County sheriff in 2005. The unanimous ruling on Friday sends back the case of Scott D. Cheever, who was convicted in October 2007 for the shooting death of Sheriff Matt Samuels when the officer was serving a warrant at a rural home where meth was made.

“I think about my dad every day,” says Heath Samuels, Matt’s son. “I’ll never forget him. And basically, going through another court trial just brings back the memories of that day.”

Heath says his dad was also his hero. And the death of his father is something he’d just as soon forget. But the justices of the Supreme Court in Kansas ruled this week that Cheever’s constitutional rights were violated when a psychiatrist disclosed Cheever’s psychological records during the trial without his consent. The testimony was based on Cheever’s evaluations when the case was in federal court before it was remanded to state court.

Cheever’s conviction for manufacturing of methamphetamines and criminal possession of a firearm were upheld. So there will be another trial. Lawyers following the Supreme Court ruling say they are not surprised to see the Kansas high court taking a second look at the conviction.

“So far the Kansas courts have reviewed seven capital convictions, and reversed seven capital convictions,” says Legal Analyst and Wichita attorney Dan Monnat. “Mr. Cheever was originally asked by the court to talk when it was thought he would be going after a mental defense. But he never made a mental defense. That clearly violated Mr. Cheever’s 5th amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself….”

Cheever said after his arrest, he was too high on Meth to know what he was doing. That’s a claim that was taken seriously by federal prosecutors who first handled the case. And the Feds asked for a mental evaluation. But the case was turned over to the state for prosecution where Cheever was tried and convicted of capital Murder. That’s where the state Supreme Court comes into play.

A mental evaluation done at the request of federal authorities was handed off to the Kansas prosecutors for the trial. And attorneys now arguing Cheever’s case say that mental evaluation was offered at trial, against Cheever’s will. Thus, the 5th amendment violation ruling from the state Supreme Court. Heath Samuels says he still has faith in the justice system. He just wants to remember his dad while he was alive, not the day he died.

“Basically, I’d like to be able to forget about the day that he was killed and just forget about the guy that killed him and just remember the good times that I spent with him.”

See video at KSN

KSN TV – By Craig Andres

  • Aug 23, 2012
  • KAKE TV
  • -
  • by Jared Cerullo

The man who was once in line to become the potentate of the Wichita Midian Shrine Temple could face a trial on rape and child sex charges.  Jodie Mosier was in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing.  He’s charged with rape and aggravated indecent liberties with a child against his own step daughter and step granddaughter.

The Sedgwick County District Attorney charged Mosier with the crimes after his family told police of the allegations in March of this year.  However, Mosier’s defense attorney, Dan Monnat, claims the allegations are patently false. “These allegations dating back months or years were manufactured as a result of the anger that arose as a response to the disintegration of the marriage between Jodie Mosier and Tammy Mosier,” Monnat said.

Monnat added that the allegations didn’t surface until the next day after Jodie Mosier filed for divorce earlier this year. “The 13 year-old granddaughter was privy to information about the disintegration of her grandpa and grandma’s marriage,” Monnat said, “and privy to her grandmother and mother’s bitterness about the disintegration of that marriage and the divorce that was filed.”

Judge Jeff Syrios heard from both the young girl and her mother.  The defense also alleges that both of the victims were — and still are — angry, and wanted to attack Mosier and seek vengeance for his infidelity by taking a mistress to Las Vegas. “The acts were never mentioned until they were angrily brought up the day after the divorce was filed on March 21st, 2012,” said Monnat.

Mosier was in line to become the potentate of the Wichita Midian Shrine Temple in 2013, but an office manager confirms he will not take that post. The defense said it plans to call its own witnesses to the stand, which is fairly unusual for a preliminary hearing.  The judge will hear from those witnesses at a later date.  Meanwhile, Mosier remains free on bond.  The judge will eventually determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial.

See video at KAKE

KAKE TV – By Jared Cerullo

  • Jul 05, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

Sal Intagliata has been elected Vice President of the Wichita Bar Association for the 2012-2013 term. The WBA has more than 1,300 attorneys and judges as members.

Intagliata also sits on the Board of Governors of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (KACDL) for the 2012-2014 term.

  • Jun 18, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

Dan Monnat has been named by Chambers USA 2012 as one of Kansas’ most notable litigators in the areas of white-collar crime and government investigations. According to the publication’s editorial report, Monnat “enjoys a burgeoning reputation for his astute handling of white-collar criminal matters.” Chambers also describes Monnat as “very thorough and diligent in his research, preparation and presentation…”

Lawyers are researched and ranked by Chambers USA based on legal ability, client service, business acumen, diligence, and professional conduct. Rankings also reflect pre-eminence in the attorney’s key practice area and achievement in the past year.

  • Jun 08, 2012
  • The Wichita Eagle
  • -
  • by Tim Potter
The defense attorney for a former Garden Plain football coach charged with child sex crimes is arguing that an undercover detective entrapped the coach and that he didn’t solicit anyone.
 

Defense attorney Dan Monnat is making the argument in a motion filed Thursday to dismiss the charges against Todd Puetz, who had been a winning high school coach and athletic director before being charged last November with electronic solicitation, attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child and attempted criminal sodomy.

The defense motion came less than a month after a District Court judge found that prosecutors presented enough evidence for Puetz, 40, to go trial Aug. 6.

The District Attorney’s Office today declined to comment on the move to dismiss the charges.

In Thursday’s filing, Monnat seized on these words from Puetz: “I knew you weren’t 15.” Monnat said that according to testimony, Puetz said those words with a smile when he stepped into a house that was part of an undercover sting operation and saw a 40-some-year-old undercover detective, Jennifer Wright. The sting involved an adult escort ad and the undercover detective saying by phone that she was a 15-year-old selling all kinds of sex.

“Mr. Puetz allegedly called the phone number in the ad, and laughed in surprise and disbelief when the woman who answered in her normal adult voice told him that she was only 15,” Monnat said in the motion to dismiss.

“Once she made this claim, it took eight telephone calls (some of which were initiated by Detective Wright when it appeared that Mr. Puetz was ‘not interested in pursuing something’.” And he said, “I will pass.” It was two hours before Puetz arrived at the sting house on West Kellogg, and he never voiced a desire for underage sex, Monnat argued in the motion.

The motion also said that when Puetz arrived at the house, “he appeared wholly unprepared to have sex of any kind that Detective Wright suggested” — he had only $45 on him and no condom, the motion said. He had other money in his car.

Officers immediately arrested Puetz, and he told a detective he didn’t want to have sex with underage girls, “and he explained that if ‘Marissa’ had in fact been underage, he intended to help her by giving her money, and ‘that’s all he was going to do’ before leaving and going home,” the motion said.

After listening to both sides at Puetz’s preliminary hearing last month, District Judge Ben Burgess said the testimony brought by the prosecution showed probable cause to believe that Puetz was responding to an advertisement that offered sex. Burgess also said that after the undercover detective told Puetz by phone three or four times that she was 15, it’s reasonable for prosecutors to argue that when he showed up at the site of the undercover sting, he expected to have sex with a 15-year-old girl.

Monnat has entered not-guilty pleas on Puetz’s behalf.

Read Article on Kansas.com

The Wichita Eagle – By Tim Potter
  • Apr 25, 2012
  • The Wichita Eagle
  • -
  • by Deb Gruver and Tim Potter
 Prosecutors disputed Wednesday that a Wichita doctor who drove for three miles with a lawn worker’s body on top of his van suffered from a medical condition the morning of the June 10 accident last year, saying he had the presence of mind to make statements to police.
 

Mohammad Sarrafizadeh, 67, told police that he saw Ramon Martinez-Limon, the 31-year-old man who was trimming grass in an easement, 50 to 100 feet ahead of him on Greenwich Road near Douglas before he struck him three to five seconds later, chief deputy attorney Aaron Breitenbach said Wednesday afternoon. Sarrafizadeh also told police that he saw Martinez-Limon strike his windshield, Breitenbach said.

Martinez-Limon’s body flew onto the roof of Sarrafizadeh’s van, and the doctor drove home and into his garage. Witnesses tried to stop him, and some followed him to his home.

Sarrafizadeh’s lawyer, Dan Monnat, maintained during the case that the doctor, who surrendered his medical license, suffered a stroke that morning and said that respected physicians “have regarded the evidence and the testing as sufficient to conclude that he had a stroke at the time of the accident and his condition continues to deteriorate.”

But Breitenbach said there were no “scientific facts” to support that. Breitenbach said Sarrafizadeh did suffer what he called a “real” stroke in November, months after the accident.

“We obviously disagree,” Breitenbach said of the district attorney office’s opinion of Sarrafizadeh’s health that day.

Sarrafizadeh was driving his 22-year-old daughter, who is severely mentally disabled, to her special-needs school the morning of the accident, Monnat has said. Police said Martinez-Limon was working near the street when a minivan struck him at about 7:15 a.m. near a Hawker Beechcraft plant entrance. Police arrested Sarrafizadeh the next day.

Sarrafizadeh pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of vehicular homicide on Friday. A judge sentenced him immediately to a 12-month suspended jail sentence and a year of non-reporting probation. He also had faced a felony – failure to stop at an accident resulting in death – but prosecutors dropped that charge. Monnat thanked the district attorney’s office for “permitting this simplified final resolution.”

Asked what he meant by that comment, Monnat said his client’s “condition is such that he’s not up to additional litigation. We needed to resolve it for that reason, and the DA worked out a plea agreement with us and permitted him not to contest the misdemeanor case against him.”

Monnat said the doctor plans to move to New York to be with family. Breitenbach and chief district attorney Tom Weilert spoke to the media Wednesday in response to comments Monnat made about the case. Sarrafizadeh “has allowed the court to find that he was responsible” for Martinez-Limon’s death, but the accident, Breitenbach noted, was an “unintentional action on his part.”

Asked if Sarrafizadeh’s sentence was fitting for a case that involved a man’s death, Breitenbach said the district attorney’s office does “look at the circumstances of the defendant.”

Sarrfizadeh did call police that morning, but it was after several people already had and after people had followed him home, Breitenbach. “It was untimely, obviously,” Breitenbach said of the doctor’s call. Sarrafizadeh had the wherewithal to drive home, drive into his garage and go inside his home that morning, Breitenbach said, saying those actions were “inconsistent with” someone who had blacked out. “All that shows a mental process inconsistent with a stroke or stroke-like event,” Breitenbach said.

Read Article on Kansas.com

The Wichita Eagle – By Deb Gruver and Tim Potter
  • Mar 27, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

By Dan Monnat and Paige Nichols, published in
The Champion, December, 2010.

  • Mar 16, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

WICHITA, Kan. – For the 24th consecutive year, Dan Monnat, of Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, has been named to The Best Lawyers in America®. In this 2012 edition, Monnat was selected for inclusion in three fields: criminal defense, white collar criminal defense and appellate defense. The publication bases its selection on a confidential, nationwide peer survey, rating attorneys for professional competency, legal scholarship, pro bono service, and achievement.

  • Mar 05, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

By Dan Monnat and Paige Nichols, Journal of the
Kansas Association for Justice, May 2011.

  • Feb 23, 2012
  • Monnat & Spurrier

WICHITA, Kan. – Helping raise funds for blood cancer research, Jon McConnell is a finalist for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man the Year. The Man & Woman of the Year finalists have kicked off a 10-week fundraising competition to earn the ultimate title of Man & Woman of the Year. Between now and May 5, 2012, each “vote” for Jon is a $1 pledge for LLS, the largest national voluntary health organization dedicated to curing leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. Votes and secure donations can be made at Jon McConnell’s LLS Man of the Year webpage.

Candidates raise funds in honor of the Girl and Boy of the Year, in this case Mikala Hodgens, a 9-year-old with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, and Joseph Bacon, a 6 year-old with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

“Every four minutes, someone new is diagnosed with a blood cancer,” McConnell said. “Fundraisers create hope for a cure, plus generate funds to improve the quality of life of patients and families. I am extremely proud to be helping in this cause and appreciate the support of my friends and colleagues in this effort.”