The retired U.S. Border Patrol agent charged in May with sexually assaulting a Bisbee woman nearly 20 years ago will be arraigned in a Maricopa County courtroom next month on charges stemming from three other sexual assaults reported in the East Valley in 1999 and 2000.
A Maricopa County judge has ordered John Joseph Daly III be physically present for arraignment on Oct. 20 in a case consisting of felony charges involving three different victims. The order requires Daly be transported from the Cochise County jail in Bisbee where he has been held on a no-bond order since his May 4 arrest on charges he restrained, beat, and sexually assaulted a woman in her Bisbee apartment in October 2001.
But before he goes to Maricopa County, Daly must appear in a Cochise County courtroom for a Sept. 28 hearing about whether his indictment in the 2001 Bisbee case was the result of misleading and inappropriate testimony presented to a Cochise County grand jury in May.
Daly, 57, contends the Cochise County Attorney’s Office allowed the grand jury to hear irrelevant evidence from Mesa Police Det. Derek Samuel who was investigating eight cold-case sexual assaults committed in Chandler, Gilbert, and Mesa dating back to 1999. DNA evidence in three of those incidents had the same DNA profile, which also matched evidence left at the Bisbee attack.
Samuel secured indictments from a Maricopa County grand jury on April 30 for five counts of sexual assault and three counts of kidnap for the three incidents. Daly was then arrested in Cochise County and a search warrant previously issued by a Maricopa County judge led to the seizure of several items from Daly’s home in Hereford, a rural community south of Sierra Vista.
According to court documents signed by Chandler Officer Ashely Nolan, among the seized items were old newspaper clippings about the Bisbee attack as well as rapes in Gilbert and Mesa.
On May 13, Samuel appeared before a Cochise County grand jury where he testified about his cold-case investigation and the recently discovered connection to Daly and the October 2001 assault in Bisbee.
“The State basically told this Grand Jury that the Defendant is a serial rapist by eliciting testimony about several other, unproven and unindicted cases, thereby tainting this Grand Jury’s ability to be fair (and) impartial,” defense attorney Dana Hogle wrote in a motion for redetermination of probable cause by a new Cochise County grand jury.
Brian McIntyre, the elected county attorney for Cochise Cochise, is serving as prosecutor in Daly’s case related to the 2001 assault in Bisbee. His written response to the defense motion notes the Cochise County grand jury presentation was conducted in a fair manner and complied with Arizona law, including the admission of “other act” evidence.
“The State submits that the Defendant was afforded substantial procedural due process, and that the presentation and process was fair, sufficient evidence was introduced, and that based upon the evidence presented the grand jury returned a ‘true bill.’. The State asks this Court to deny Defendant’s motion,” McIntyre wrote.
Judge Timothy Dickerson will conduct oral arguments on Sept. 28 about the motion for a new grand jury presentation. Dickerson is Cochise County’s presiding judge and the same judge who affirmed a court order by a justice of the peace to hold Daly in pretrial custody without bail.
In a related case, Daly was sued last month by Jane Doe, a pseudonym for the victim of the October 2001 assault in Bisbee. Arizona Daily Independent has learned the lawsuit could be amended in the future to include USBP officials as well as the City of Bisbee if warranted.
Daly retired from USBP in 2019. At least one Bisbee police officer made comments to a newspaper at the time, suggesting the woman made up the 2001 assault or at least was deflecting blame for the attack away from someone she knew.
