RBC I There was a hearing at the Rio Blanco Courthouse Dec. 19 concerning the case of Meeker resident Logan Piper, 19, who reportedly stabbed Rio Blanco Sheriff Si Woodruff during an incident at Pioneers Medical Center in Meeker on Aug. 21.
The preliminary hearing for Piper, who is charged with felony assault with extreme indifference, assault in the first degree for threatening a police officer and two counts of felony menacing in relation to the incident in which Woodruff was stabbed once in the lower left stomach area, was scheduled at the Dec. 19 meeting to take place Feb. 6.
Piper had initially been charged with attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault.
Piper is still being held in the Rio Blanco County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.
It was the opinion of prosecutor Matthew Barrett that “whatever the defenses might be—such as insanity, which I think is the most likely one—are not relevant to the purposes of the preliminary hearing.
“This is a very straightforward hearing,” he said. “I don’t think the facts of the actual stabbing of Sheriff Si Woodruff are in dispute, (so) it shouldn’t take more than honestly 25 minutes to present my case.”
Assuming it would take her about that long to present her case, Rio Blanco County Public Defender Elise Myer argued that one hour “is cutting it close, (so I) would ask for at least a two-hour setting.”
District Court Judge John Neily agreed with Myer, the defense attorney, setting the preliminary hearing for 2 p.m. on Feb. 6.
