A justice of the peace in Bisbee has denied several motions filed on behalf of a former superior court judicial assistant who sought dismissal of 10 misdemeanors cases against her stemming from a years-long feud with a neighbor.
Lynelle Gae has been arrested or cited by the Bisbee Police Department 10 times since May in connection with a dispute with neighbor Yolanda Moots. At the time, Gae worked as the judicial assistant to Superior Court Judge David Thorn but she later resigned.
The charges against Gae, 60, include criminal damage, public nuisance, trespassing, and criminal littering, as well as interfering with judicial proceedings. Much of the evidence came from a surveillance camera Moots installed earlier this year pointed toward a property line the women share.
On Aug. 21, Justice of the Peace Janus Poppe denied motions filed by Gae’s attorney Wallace Hoggatt to dismiss the charges. A pretrial conference is now scheduled for Sept. 22 and if convicted later this year at trial Gae faces a maximum six months in jail for each charge and a monetary fine.
Hoggatt had argued that the cases against Gae should be dismissed -particularly those which allege she violated a court order- because the charges did not include sufficient “essential facts” for Gae to know what criminal conduct she allegedly committed and when.
Gae’s first citation was issued May 22 based on video taken from Moots’ surveillance system. The video shows an individual “who appeared to be Lynelle throwing unknown items from her yard into (Moots’) yard and at her house,” according to Officer Tim DeFoor. “The unknown substance had left grease marks everywhere and appeared to have damaged the paint on the residence.”
Then on June 2, Gae was cited after Bisbee Sgt. Carlos Moreno responded to Moots’ residence after she found an unidentified brown oily substance in her yard. He reviewed the surveillance system and observed a woman he believed was Gae, dressed in black, at about 12:15 p.m. walk toward a fence that borders Moots’ property before several items are seen flying into Moots’ yard.
Moreno seized some of the substance, which he noted had “an odd strong chemical” that irritated his throat. He planned to have a laboratory identify the substance. His report also noted that he spoke with Gae later that afternoon and she appeared to be wearing the same dark clothing as seen in the video.
The same day, Gae was named as the defendant in an Injunction Against Harassment signed by Cochise County’s presiding superior court judge. The injunction orders Gae to have “no contact” with Moots for the next year except through attorneys or the legal process and to “not commit any act of harassment” against her neighbor.
Gae is under similar “no contact” orders in each of her 10 misdemeanor cases. She was later cited -and on two occasions booked into jail- for other alleged acts with Moots listed as victim and for allegedly interfering with judicial proceedings by knowingly disobeying a “lawful order, process or other mandate of a court.”
Which is the subject of the motions to dismiss filed last month by Hoggatt, who argued that several of the charges against Gae are “insufficient as a matter of law” as she is accused of violating “something” but no specifics are provided.
“Because the State has failed to state clearly what order Lynelle Gae is accused of violating, or how she supposedly violated it, defendant has not been ‘informed of the nature and cause of the accusation’ and cannot defend herself against the charge,” Hoggatt argued, citing the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The Cochise County Attorney’s Office opposed the dismissals, and Poppe denied the defendant’s motions after a hearing Aug. 21. The judge found “sufficiency of the complaints to be whole,” he ordered.
In mid-2018, Gae called police in connection to clashes between her and Moots over a fence which separates the women’s residential properties. Later that year she filed a lawsuit -which she won in October 2019- to remove items Moots had attached or placed around the fence. Moots was also ordered to “cease and desist” modifying or attaching items to the fence.
Despite that order, additional conflicts continued to arise between the women.
