LOS ANGELES—Mercedes Carrera and Daemon Cins were set to face a pre-trial hearing in child sex abuse charges Thursday, after remaining in jail for almost 23 months since their arrest. But for the ninth consecutive time, a judge granted a continuance in the case. The hearing is now scheduled for January 7, according to information from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office.
The pre-trial hearing had already been postponed repeatedly since August 8 of 2019, when Carrera, a longtime performer in the adult industry, and Cins sat in a courtroom as prosecutors played a 75-minute audio recording of the alleged, nine-year-old victim in the case. Carrera, who denies the charges against her and along with Cins has entered pleas of not guilty, has publicly acknowledged that the girl making the accusations is her daughter.
The charges against Carrera and Cins include 10 counts of sexual penetration/oral copulation with a minor under 10 years of age, and one count of sexual intercourse/sodomy with the same child, according to documents posted online by the San Bernardino Superior Court records system.
Carrera and Cins have been in jail since their arrest on February 1, 2019, each held on $2 million bail, which neither has been able to meet. While several recent delays in the case have come due to the COVID-19 pandemic, three pre-trial hearing last year also resulted in postponements with lawyers for the pair saying that they needed more time for “investigation” of the charges against Carrera and Cins.
Carrera is represented by Joshua Castro, who has served with the San Bernardino public defender’s office since 2008. Court-appointed defense lawyer Nicola Fitzgerald represents Cins. Both lawyers were present at the last scheduled court appearance, which was four months ago, on August 20. But neither Carrera nor Cins were there, and were not even transported from their holding cells to the courtroom, according to the court documents.
Neither Castro nor Fitzgerald answered AVN’s requests for comment on the case this week. Castro, who had previously commented following court appearances, had not made a public statement on the case outside of a courtroom since last December. At that time, approximately one year ago, Castro said that the defense needed “more time” to investigate the case.
Asked for any details that he could provide about the defense investigation at that time, Casto stated, “I don’t really want to say what we’re doing.”
