Utah man will face jury for allegedly raping relative
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FREMONT COUNTY — A Utah man accused of drugging and raping a family member is preparing to head to a jury trial in May.
Jacob Oberg, 26, appeared in court Monday for a pre-trial conference. He is charged with one count of rape after the alleged incident took place while on a camping trip in Island Park last June. Oberg pleaded not guilty to the charge in December.
During Monday’s court hearing, Oberg’s defense attorney Joshua Garner argued the search warrant that was granted to search Oberg’s presumed cell phone should be invalidated. Garner said the warrant had an incorrect phone number belonging to the defendant. Garner said the warrant hardly had any details describing the phone other than it was a Samsung Galaxy device justifying a null warrant.
“With regard to the search warrant, there was no SKU number, no serial number, there was no attached description of the phone – like a picture of the phone to be searched,” Garner said.
Detectives searched the phone they believed Oberg used to document the incident. They also found numerous Snapchat messages between Oberg and the victim on the phone along with a picture message of what appeared to be a male and a female having sex with an explicit caption. Messages suggest the victim could be in the photo.
Deputies also found messages where the victim confronted Oberg about “slipping something into her drink” and that she knew about the alleged rape. The victim also said she wasn’t going to tell anyone because she didn’t want to hurt other relatives.
In the Snapchat messages, Oberg replied, “Ok sorry that I went too far, I was drunk, I know that is no exvuse (sic).”
Prosecuting attorney Marica Murdoch argued the defendant’s phone was owned by his step-father, and that he sent the phone to Fremont County detectives.
Murdoch said there was a correct number listed on a portion of the incident report that was attached, and that a clerical error was made on the detective’s part.
“There’s a harmless error in this situation, and no reason to get rid of the search warrant, or any evidence that was obtained therefrom,” Murdoch said. “There’s nothing that we didn’t know before that we know now that wouldn’t give us probable cause to rely upon to get a new search warrant and go forward with the new search.”
In addition, Garner believed because information on the phone wasn’t obtained properly, that any information found on the phone should be suppressed.
“I’ve asked the court to issue an order prohibiting the introduction of any Snapchat messages in this case,” Garner said.
District Judge Darren Simpson has not made a decision on what to do with the motion as yet.
The judge asked the prosecution for jury instructions and exhibits in preparation for the trial and discussed how many people should be pooled for a jury selection. The court clerk recommended 100.
“Just so the court’s aware, East Idaho News has recently picked up this case. I’m not sure how that happened. Given that they’ve asked to record some of these hearings and proceedings, I wonder if it might be wise to include a few more people in that jury pool because we don’t know who may have seen that,” Murdoch said.
“Typically I use about 80 (so) we should be okay with 100,” Simpson responded.
Oberg will appear in court for his jury trial on May 14.