RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — The lengthy delays in the ongoing child sexual abuse case against adult performer Mercedes Carrera and her partner, Daemon Cins, continued on Friday when a Superior Court Judge Katrina West granted a 13th consecutive postponement of a pretrial hearing for the couple. According to documents posted online by San Bernardino County Superior Court, a trial in the case — if a trial is required — would likely not take place until July 6 of this year.
The rescheduled pretrial hearing is now set to take place on May 7. Carerra and Cins have remained behind bars since their arrest on February 1, 2019, on charges that they repeatedly sexually abused a then-nine-year-old girl, whom Carrera later acknowledged to be her own daughter.
According to the court documents, lawyers on both sides of the case appear to have changed in recent weeks. Public defender Joshua Castro, who initially represented Carerra, has not appeared in court with her since August 20 of last year. In her two most recent appearances, including on Friday, she was represented by Geoff Newman, a court-appointed lawyer in private practice, who is a member of the San Bernardino County “conflict panel.” A conflict panel is a group of lawyers who step in to represent clients requiring court-appointed attorneys, when the public defender’s office is judged to have a conflict of interest.
On the prosecution side, Assistant District Attorney Brianne Durose appears to have left the case, with 20-year veteran of the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office Laura Fragoso taking over the case.
Cins was represented on Friday by the same lawyer who has repped him throughout the case, conflict panel attorney Nicola Fitzgerald.
Before the series of 13 straight postponements, the last substantial hearing for Carrera and Cins took place in a Rancho Cucamonga courtroom on August 8, 2019. At that hearing, prosecutors played a lengthy audio recording in which the alleged victim graphically described what she said were the sexual acts committed against her by Carrera and Cins. The interview was conducted by San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Theis.
The May 7 hearing is scheduled to be held in Department R2 at the Rancho Cucamonga Superior Courthouse.
