In January, a Mesa man who was on probation for felony aggravated assault attempted to flee from U. S. Border Patrol agents in Bisbee while transporting several undocumented border crossers in a pickup truck. The vehicle flipped, leaving two of the migrants dead.
The driver, William Maurice Brown, was subsequently indicted by a Cochise County grand jury on 15 felonies including first degree murder, endangerment, and unlawful flight. He will be back in court on Nov. 15 to learn whether a trial date will be set.
However, Brown has some outstanding issues in two old criminal cases in Maricopa County that he is hoping to resolve before his Cochise County case moves forward to trial.
Court records show Brown, now 27, was sentenced in Maricopa County to serve 5.5 years in prison for conspiracy to commit a 2012 armed robbery and another 1 year for a 2013 aggravated assault. He was also ordered to be on probation for 4 years upon his release from prison in April 2019.
That probation term ran concurrently with another 4 years of intensive probation Brown began serving in 2019 after pleading guilty in a 2013 Maricopa County drug case involving two dozen defendants accused of gang activities.
A petition to revoke probation was filed in both of those cases just days after Brown was arrested in Bisbee. In August, Judge Laura Cardinal of the Cochise County Superior Court approved a proposal by defense attorney Chris Kimminau to resolve the old Maricopa County cases before holding a trial in the murder case.
Michael Powell of the Cochise County Attorney’s Office is prosecuting that murder case. He told Arizona Daily Independent that it is not unusual for a case involving two counts of first degree murder to still be at an early stage of the prosecution process.
“Under Arizona law, such cases are, by definition, deemed complex,” Powell said. “Accordingly, it is not surprising that this case has not resolved as it approaches one year since indictment.”
Although not much has been recently happening in Cardinal’s courtroom, that does not mean no progress is being made, Powell says. He has been in communication with Kimminau, who was recently appointed to represent Brown in the two Maricopa County probation cases.
“The probation matters out of another county, which involve allegations associated with the criminal charges in this county, additionally complicate the situation and make a speedy resolution less likely,” Powell explained.
The prosecutor also noted that Brown is not currently asserting his speedy trial rights. In fact, the defendant’s attorney confirmed to Cardinal that Brown has explicitly waived the time delay in the Cochise County caused by the effort to resolve the Maricopa County cases.
In the meantime, Brown continues to be held at the Cochise County jail on a $1 million bond order issued shortly after his arrest. If a Maricopa County judge wants Brown to attend a hearing in person in Phoenix, it will require a court order signed by Cardinal.
Brown is the second Mesa resident indicted on murder charges this year in Cochise County. The other is Felix Mendez, age 16, who was driving a vehicle that blew through a stoplight at a major highway intersection, instantly killing a Benson woman driving to her birthday party.
Mendez had two undocumented border crossers in the vehicle at the time. Two others jumped out of the vehicle several minutes earlier during a police pursuit which had ended before Mendez went through the intersection.
READ ABOUT FELIX MENDEZ ARREST: Woman Killed In Cochise County When Mesa Teen Runs Red Light Following High Speed Pursuit
