Alabama prosecutors, who have charged elected Jefferson County District Attorney Charles Todd Henderson with perjury, want to get his girlfriend on videotape.
Quick.
Because they fear the two will marry. And if they do a key witness to the charges against him cannot be compelled to testify.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, and Deputy AG Matt Hart, today filed a motion asking Chilton County Circuit Judge Sibley G. Reynolds - who is handling the case because of Henderson's position -- to grant a videotaped deposition of Yareima Akl, a material witness. The state contends that "due to exceptional circumstances of the case, it is in the interest of justice that Akl's testimony be taken and preserved for trial."
The case against Henderson revolves around the question of whether he, as the appointed guardian ad litem of Akl's child, had an affair with Akl and lied to the court about it.
She has since been granted a divorce from her husband and, according to the filing, passed through the sixty-day waiting period to marry again.
"To be clear, the State has no objection or interest in whether or not Henderson and Akl marry," Hart wrote in the filing. "But the State has a fundamental interest in pursuing justice and a fair trial. The absence of any testimony from a key witness in Henderson's trial will cause an injustice to the State and can be avoided if her deposition is taken before trial and preserved."
Attempts to reach Henderson's lawyer were unsuccessful.
The state argues that there is "reliable evidence" that shows the two may soon marry and allow her to invoke the marital privilege.
"The State expects Akl to provide firsthand testimony that no other witness can provide the jury," the filing reads. "Simply put, the jury can hear from no witness more valuable than Akl. And in the context of a perjury case, the absence of the key witness will cause a significant injustice to the State's case."
In other words, if they get hitched, Henderson in all likelihood walks away.
Henderson, a Democrat, got to know Akl in August of 2015, and she began to work on his political campaign, documents have shown. Akl and her husband had a 10-year-old child, and the court decided to appoint a guardian ad litem to make sure the child's interests were protected.
Charles Todd Henderson and Yareima Akl.
Akl's lawyer at the time asked specifically for Henderson to be named the guardian, though it would later be shown they had a romantic involvement. It was a "hookup relationship," Henderson's lawyer has said, but private investigators hired by Akl's husband indicate the two spent much of many nights together.
When Henderson was asked under oath in the divorce case whether the two were in a romantic relationship, he said the wrong thing. And wound up charged with perjury.
He could not take the office he was elected to hold.
Now he might be able to say something else and make it go away.
"I do."
aklfiling by John Archibald on Scribd