The lawyer for Attleboro sect member Karen E. Robidoux, who is charged with murder in the starvation death of her baby, has told a judge that she wants to be tried separately from her husband, Jacques D. Robidoux, who also faces murder charges.
Karen Robidoux could try to blame her husband, at least partly, for the death of their son, Samuel Robidoux, who starved to death three days before his first birthday in 1999, her lawyer told the judge, according to prosecutor Walter Shea.
"What I was trying to convey to the court is that the potential is there for a defense that is antagonistic to his," Karen Robidoux's lawyer, C. Samuel Sutter, said in a telephone interview yesterday. He added that she has other grounds to seek a separate trial, but declined to say more. "I don't think it's a good idea to comment on a motion before the judge rules on it."
A lawyer who represented Karen Robidoux before Sutter joined the case told reporters that she had tried to feed her baby -- had even sneaked food to him on occasions -- but that her husband prevented her from giving the boy more.
Handwritten notes seized by the police say that Jacques Robidoux's sister, G. Michelle Mingo, told other members of the sect on March 2, 1999, that she had received a vision from God that Samuel Robidoux was to be taken off solid food and only consume his mother's milk. By that time, though, Karen Robidoux was pregnant again and apparently unable to produce sufficient milk for the boy. He died April 26.
The police also investigated the 1999 death of Samuel's cousin, Jeremiah Corneau, but found that he had died of natural causes and did not file charges.
Jeremiah's parents, David P. and Rebecca A. Corneau, are currently fighting a Juvenile Court judge's order that they turn over a baby that investigators believe was born to them in November or December. Judge Kenneth P. Nasif has ordered them jailed for refusing to cooperate. The Corneaus have filed an appeal with the state Supreme Judicial Court, which has scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. Thursday in Boston.
In the Samuel Robidoux case, prosecutors and lawyers for the Robidouxes and for Mingo, who is charged with being an accessory to an assault on the boy, met on Thursday with Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Bowen Donovan to discuss the case. Donovan recently was specially assigned to the Robidoux case.
Donovan has set a deadline of Feb. 22 for lawyers to file motions. Besides Karen Robidoux's motion for a separate trial, defense lawyers are expected to file motions to preclude the jury from hearing about some of the evidence in the case. The motions will be argued before Donovan on March 4.
On that date, a trial date will also be set. The judge indicated that the trial would probably begin in mid-April to early May.