PANAMA CITY — Attorneys preparing to try the case of a professional expert witness charged with perjury have a week to figure out if another professional expert witness is necessary and the trial should be delayed.
If John Lloyd’s trial, which is currently scheduled to begin Dec. 16, needs to be delayed, there’s no telling how long the delay would be, Judge Michael Overstreet said during a hearing Tuesday. Overstreet was not inclined to grant prosecutor Megan Teeple’s motion to continue, which was filed early Tuesday after Lloyd’s attorneys disclosed a new witness.
Teeple wanted time to depose the witness and, if necessary, hire yet another expert witness to rebut whatever the expert witness’s expert witness had to say. Overstreet pointed out there was no room in his schedule for months and that there was “no way” Lloyd’s case would be considered a priority over a homicide case.
“I’m not inclined to make other defendants wait so I can clear another week for trial,” he said.
Overstreet didn’t rule on Teeple’s motion; instead he asked Lloyd’s attorney’s to prepare a sort of sneak preview of the expert’s testimony and show it to Teeple by Tuesday. Teeple has until the next day to respond and determine if she still will need more time to prepare for trial; if she does, Overstreet said, there will be another hearing next week.
Earlier this month, Overstreet reinstated several of the perjury counts against Lloyd that he had dismissed in October. Overstreet dismissed eight of 13 perjury counts against Lloyd and then reinstated four of them, so Lloyd faces a total of nine counts of perjury in an official proceeding, each of which is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Lloyd was arrested after he testified on behalf of Timothy Foxworth, who was the only person with his infant son when the boy sustained near-fatal brain injuries that Foxworth told investigators were the result of a short fall. Foxworth was charged with aggravated child abuse and could’ve faced 30 years in prison, but was convicted of only child abuse and sentenced to less than five years in prison.
Prosecutors and police believed Lloyd’s testimony — that one of the three explanations Foxworth gave for his son’s injuries was plausible — made the difference that led to the less severe sentence, and Bay County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Lloyd after a short time.
