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The volumes of missing files from a 2006 murder case have been returned to an Allen County Superior Court judge, but the woman who took the documents will spend 90 more days in jail for not returning the materials.
After a month of wrangling with Adela Favela over the official court record of her son’s murder trial, Allen Superior Judge Fran C. Gull received the final four sections of the 13-volume file late Thursday morning. She received the first nine volumes Wednesday afternoon.
Each set of documents was wrapped in aluminum foil, put in plastic grocery bags and then sealed with clear plastic tape. They had been hidden inside the frame of a dresser and stashed under a 5-foot-tall bookshelf, according to court testimony.
At a hearing Thursday afternoon, Gull sentenced Favela to 90 days in the Allen County Jail for being in direct criminal contempt of court.
The 58-year-old woman had been in jail for the past 17 days on indirect contempt of court until she told authorities where to find the court’s file.
The file – the complete record of Daniel Favela’s 2006 murder trial – was found largely with the help of Adela Favela’s 17-year-old daughter Maria, a senior at North Side High School.
The file contains transcripts of hearings related to the murder case, court testimony and physical evidence.
Daniel Favela, sentenced to 60 years in prison after a jury convicted him of the February 2006 slaying of 22-year-old Jeffrey Kramer, is appealing his case.
The contempt case is related to that appeal.
Former Allen County Prosecutor Robert Gevers II, now in private practice, was representing Daniel Favela for his appeal and had checked out the official court file from the Allen County Courthouse to prepare briefs for review by the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Sometime in June, Gevers’ office gave Adela Favela the entire file after she said she was going to hire another attorney. She didn’t return the file and in August, Gevers went to court officials asking for help retrieving it.
Gull ordered Favela to return the file. She refused and has been in jail since Aug. 28.
On Wednesday, Maria Favela told a resource officer at her school that she had learned where the documents were. According to testimony at Thursday’s hearing, she took school officials over to her mother’s Centlivre Village apartment, where they found the first nine sections – located in the dresser.
Thursday’s hearing was delayed until Thursday afternoon to allow police to search for the other four sections.
Adela Favela disclosed their location to her court-appointed attorney, Phil Terrill.
By 10 a.m., Fort Wayne police officers and crime scene technicians waited for Maria Favela and prosecutors to arrive at the apartment to find the other parts of the file. Those were found under the bookcase.
Thursday afternoon, Allen County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Michael McAlexander argued Adela Favela’s “painstaking” packaging and hiding of the file indicated she had no intention of ever turning them over to another attorney.
He called the weeks-long saga of the missing file “ridiculous” and asked Gull to sentence Favela to 180 days in jail.
“Our system as a whole, we rely on the orders the court gives us,” McAlexander said. “This is a very serious matter.”
But Maria Favela asked Gull to release her mother, describing how an already difficult life got harder the past few weeks – she’s staying with a friend, worrying about how to find enough money for food, having contact with child protection officials, missing school tests to appear in court and trying to figure out how she’s going to get accepted and go to college.
Through an interpreter, Adela Favela tearfully apologized to the court, saying she did not think the situation would get to the point it had. She said she wrapped the documents and hid them to protect them because they represent the life of her son. She also detailed a number of health problems.
In sentencing her, Gull told Favela her conduct was reprehensible because she failed to consider what it did to her daughter.
“You should be ashamed of yourself for what you put your daughter through,” Gull said.
For his part, Gevers apologized during the morning portion of the hearing. Adela Favela thought she had purchased the file, even after his staff explained to her she had not, he said.
After the hearing, Gull and McAlexander said any action against Gevers would most likely be up to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
McAlexander noted that the process worked to protect the incarcerated Daniel Favela’s rights.
“Everybody worked to protect him from the foolishness of his mother,” he said.
rgreen@jg.net
