By Chris Moore

chris.moore@panews.com

 

BEAUMONT — Jonathan Torres, the man police believe planted packages containing explosive devices in this city, waived his right to a preliminary trial during a federal court appearance Thursday.

Torres’ appointed attorney Ryan Gertz said that there was no point in a preliminary trial because Magistrate Judge Zach Hawthorn, who signed the probable cause affidavit, is presiding over the case.

“For right now, we want to slow things down,” Gertz said. “We want to figure out what they have. We still haven’t entered discovery. Once we find out what they have, then we can begin to prepare a strategy. They have a lot of different agencies working on this case. We don’t know what they all have.”

Gertz said Torres had not been indicted and that the court has 60 or 90 days to do so. After that time, Gertz could challenge for the release of Torres.

“With this judge, you only get one chance to challenge detention, so we are holding off on it for right now,” Gertz said. “It’s all about knowing your judge and how he likes to do things.”

Gertz said that he hasn’t had much contact with Torres yet, but said that is not unusual.

“I tell (my clients) not to tell me anything until after discovery,” he said. “I don’t want them to tell me something and then I find out something different after discovery. The best case I have of that is a client saying, ‘The police charged me with DWI and I was just parked, sleeping off a hangover.’ Then, I get to discovery and the police found him sleeping off a hangover — on the on-ramp of the highway.”

Gertz said the public should not to jump to conclusions about Torres.

He said as of May 22, agencies investigating the case were “scraping the bottom of the barrel interviewing people and then made an arrest the following Thursday.”

“Sometimes the government gets it wrong,” he said. “We don’t know yet if they have or not.”