Lawyers for the man connected to Hannah Graham’s disappearance have requested a gag order in separate criminal investigation involving an attack and rape of a woman in Fairfax in 2005.
Jesse Matthew’s defense team wants to ban the media from talking to anyone who is involved with the Fairfax trial, which is set for March 9. Matthew has already pleaded not guilty to the three charges in the case: attempted capital murder, abduction with the intent to defile and sexual penetration with an object against the victim’s will.
Matthew’s lawyers have asked the judge for a gag order and for two-thousand dollars to hire a DNA expert reports NBC 4. A gag order is a legal order that bans information or comments from being made public or from being given to the media. They are also called “protective orders.” Judges say they are important to protect a person’s right to a fair trial.
The case involves a woman being brutally attacked and raped in September 2005. Matthew is linked by DNA to that rape and also to the murder of Morgan Harrington. She vanished in 2009. But Matthew has not yet been charged in the Harrington case.Matthew has been charged with disappearance of Hannah Graham, whose remains were found in October not far from where she went missing at the University of Virginia this summer.
A hearing on the gag order (also known as a protective order) is scheduled for January 8 in Fairfax.
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