An attorney for Steven and Marlene Aisenberg asks federal appellate judges for transcripts and legal fees.
By Associated Press
Published November 6, 2003
JACKSONVILLE - A couple once considered suspects in their baby's 1997 disappearance asked a federal appeals court panel Wednesday to order the release of grand jury transcripts so the public can see how their case was handled.
Attorney Michael C. Tigar, arguing on behalf of Steven and Marlene Aisenberg, also asked the three-judge panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order the government to pay the couple's $2.9-million in legal fees.
The Aisenbergs were indicted in 1999, accused of lying about the disappearance of their 5-month-old daughter, Sabrina, from their Tampa area home in 1997. The charges were dropped in February 2001. The girl has not been found, and no one has been charged in her disappearance.
Tigar said the transcripts would show how the case was investigated and how the Aisenbergs were treated. Investigators placed listening devices in their home and later produced transcripts that they said showed the couple making incriminating statements about Sabrina's disappearance, but the tapes turned out to be mostly unintelligible.
"Whose grand jury is this anyway?" Tigar asked. "The grand jury is supposed to be a sword of justice."
Elizabeth Collery, an attorney for the government, argued that release of the transcripts could harm the continuing investigation into Sabrina's disappearance. New evidence could turn up at any time, she said - "we can't tell what is going to happen in the future."
The judges, Susan Black, Frank Hull and Emmett Cox, did not indicate when they will rule.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday ordered the release of the transcripts. "There is apparently no meaningful investigation to endanger, and there is nothing in these grand jury proceedings to endanger that investigation, even assuming one exists," Merryday wrote.
Merryday also ordered the government to reimburse the Aisenbergs' legal fees under a federal law allowing victims of bad-faith prosecutions to recoup legal fees. He wrote that the grand jury "indicted them vexatiously, frivolously, or in bad faith."
The appeals court ordered a delay in carrying out his rulings until it could review the case.
The Aisenbergs, who now live in Bethesda, Md., filed a lawsuit in September against the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, two federal prosecutors and 18 other people claiming their civil rights were violated during a malicious prosecution.
