INDIANAPOLIS (Scripps News Indianapolis/Court TV) — The defense attorneys representing Richard Allen have filed a motion requesting he be transferred from the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.
Attorneys Robert Scremin and William Lebrato filed the six page motion this week asking for Allen to be moved to a closer location, or their ability to represent Allen may be “seriously, if not fatally” impacted.
Officers escort Richard Matthew Allen, out of the Carroll County courthouse following a hearing, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, in Delphi, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Allen, who is charged with murder in the deaths of Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi in 2017, has faced a long battle of his safekeeping during the two-plus years of him being in custody.
After spending years in the Westville Correctional Facility, where both Allen’s previous attorneys and new attorneys have raised issue, Allen was moved to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility on December 6, 2023.
Scremin and Lebrato, who were appointed to represent Allen after the dismissal of attorney’s Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin, say the logistics of traveling from their home location of Fort Wayne to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility is too much to maintain.
In the motion, the attorneys claim the are located 233 miles from the high security prison in Sullivan County. The attorneys claim their December 22, 2023 visit to Allen was a 10-hour day.
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The motion says on that day, the attorneys met with Allen in a makeshift visitation room “in some sort of prep-kitchen within the prison housing unit” and their client was “locked in a prison cell within the kitchen.”
While requesting Allen’s transfer, the attorneys share details of a prior visit to Westville in which Allen was “shackled and chained in a manner resembling Hannibal Lecter.”
The attorneys also reiterated an issue previously brought up with the existence of Odinism within Westville Correctional Facility.
They claim in the motion, while they observed no patches displaying Odinism, they noticed a guard with a face tattoo of Odin’s spear along with other Odinism tattoos.
Scremin concludes the request by saying, “In twenty-five years of practicing law, I have never had to conduct an in-custody legal visit in the manner I have with Mr. Allen.”
He requests the court move Allen to the Allen County Jail or the Adams County Jail.
It is unclear when or if special judge Fran Gull will rule on this motion. She is a topic of discussion on Jan. 18 when the Supreme Court holds a hearing about her place in the case and the reinstatement of past attorneys Rozzi and Baldwin.
That hearing is set for 11 a.m.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Indianapolis, an E.W. Scripps Company.
