About two weeks before his trial is set to begin, a Kanawha County judge on Thursday refused to dismiss a murder charge against Miguel Quinones.
Quinones is set to stand trial April 25 for the 2013 death of Kareem Hunter inside a Marmet apartment. Hunter was reported missing Sept. 23, 2013, and his body was found almost two months later in a shallow grave in Raleigh County.
Attorneys for Quinones on Thursday alleged misconduct by police and prosecutors, arguing that false testimony had been presented to grand jurors to obtain an indictment against their client.
"Those are serious allegations, Mr. Dunlap," Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit cautioned at the beginning of Thursday's hearing.
The attorneys asked Tabit to take the extraordinary measure of requiring prosecutors to take the case back before a grand jury, and try to indict Quinones again, or dismiss the murder charge against him with prejudice, meaning it couldn't be refiled.
Quinones was indicted on the murder charge in early 2014. His case has been delayed multiple times mainly because of his requests for new attorneys. He's been appointed about 10 attorneys since the case against him was filed.
Raleigh County attorneys Robert Dunlap and Amy Osgood are the latest to represent Quinones. They were appointed last September.
Dunlap on Thursday accused lead detective in the case, Ana Pile, of the Kanawha Sheriff's Office, of misleading grand jurors so they would return an indictment against their client.
Assistant Kanawha prosecutor Jennifer Gordon adamantly denied Dunlap's claims.
Dunlap said Pile provided false information about potential evidence against Quinones, like whether he was seen on one piece of video surveillance footage or two, and, among other claims, Dunlap alleged the detective lied to grand jurors about Quinones' relationship with Kelsey Legg.
Legg "stated they had had a sexual relationship and that he had provided her with drugs and money to help her with rent," Gordon said. "To say there's no evidence of that is just not true."
Legg was sentenced to six to eight years in prison for helping to conceal a dead body and being an accessory after the fact to murder in Hunter's killing.
At her sentencing, Legg said she saw Hunter killed. She said she bought cleaning supplies used to clean up the murder scene, and her sheet and trash bags were used to dispose of Hunter's body.
Legg was seen with two men in security-camera footage buying cleaning supplies at Lowe's in Kanawha City. Gordon said that is the surveillance footage Dunlap was talking about.
To accuse Pile of perjury is unfair, Gordon told the judge. If anything, the detective could have misspoke, Gordon said.
"Take that one little bit of evidence out - it has no bearing on the evidence needed to obtain an indictment," the prosecutor said.
The judge agreed and refused the motion to throw out the murder charge against Quinones.
"Except for willful, intentional fraud, the law of this state does not permit the court to go behind the indictment of a grand jury to either inquire about its legality or determine its sufficiency," Tabit said.
The judge added that Dunlap's arguments didn't "rise to the level of perjury or knowingly false statements by Detective Pile, or was there prosecutorial misconduct, such that the indictment would be dismissed."
For the rest of Thursday's hearing, Tabit discussed the upcoming trial.
Legg, along with Deveron Patterson of Beckley, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Hunter, are expected to testify against Quinones, in accordance with the deals they made with prosecutors.
Patterson was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Prosecutors have previously said that Quinones wasn't offered a deal.
Prior bad acts committed by Quinones won't be presented to jurors, the judge ruled. Quinones was convicted 16 years ago of second-degree murder in Fayette County. In 2000, a jury convicted him of killing Christopher Reardon, a Beckley bar owner. He was released from prison over that incident in 2011, but remained on probation.
Police charged him with violating that probation and arrested him in December 2013, before charging him in Hunter's death.
Jurors also won't hear testimony about Quinones being found by police hiding in the attic at his girlfriend's house when they arrived to arrest him on the alleged probation violation, Tabit ruled, granting the defense's request.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.