BARDSTOWN, Ky. — A Nelson County judge will consider whether to drop the charges on one of the three men arrested in connection to the death of Crystal Rogers.
Stephen Lawson was in court Thursday for a hearing to get his charges dismissed.
Rogers disappeared in 2015. Her body has never been found.
Lawson is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence. There are two other suspects in the case: Brooks Houck, Rogers’ ex-boyfriend, and Joseph Lawson, Stephen’s son. Neither were in court on Thursday.
Judge Charles Simms is considering the motion of whether to drop the charges against Lawson after the hearing that lasted a little over an hour.
Thursday’s hearing focused on the motion to dismiss charges against Lawson based on the offer of immunity.
“As I take it, there’s no agreement that was ever in writing. Is that is that correct? So everything was an oral situation?” Simms said.
The commonwealth’s attorney, special prosecutor Shane Young, confirmed the offer of oral immunity was conditional on whether Lawson was 100% truthful and had no omissions.
The Commonwealth provided four audio and video clips supporting their argument that Lawson was not 100% truthful.
“And judge, we believe, there’s numerous examples, but we believe those four examples. It only takes one where you’re told that you have to tell the 100% truth and have no mission. Whether that was whether material, not material, that was not our agreement. Our agreement is 100% true and no omissions. You can cite case law that talks about contract law, that our agreement was 100% truthfulness and no omissions, which I think in those four examples, you see that the defendant was not truthful,” Young said.
Lawson’s attorney, Theodore Lavit, argued Lawson was given immunity, saying his client cooperated with law enforcement.
“I don’t know that there’s any one particular place to reiterate what I’ve said, that the agreement was made on that basis only. I’m saying that the court’s going to have to consider everything that was said in these interviews to determine what the agreement actually was, because none of it was put to writing and nobody took their signature on it in writing. It was all governed by the Commonwealth. It was all laid by the Commonwealth. It was all promoted by the Commonwealth. They had complete control over what that agreement was and it’s mentioned time after time after time and interview after interview,” Lavit said.
Lavit further argued Lawson helped law enforcement get leads to other suspects.
Judge Simms will review the evidence and make a ruling on whether to drop the charges. There is no word when he will make his ruling.