Cedar Rapids man charged in Chris Bagley killing wants trial moved out of Linn County

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Cedar Rapids man accused of hiring two men to kill Chris Bagley in 2018 will ask a judge next month to move his trial to another county because of extensive pretrial publicity.

Andrew Thomas Shaw, 34, who is charged with first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit forcible felony, argues in a motion that there has been “highly publicized trials” of Drew Blahnik, now known as Johnny Blahnik Church, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Bagley and two others also convicted in his killing.

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The motion — filed by Johnson County Chief Public Defender Peter Persaud and Julia Zalenski, assistant public defender — argues that previous media coverage and social media posts regarding Shaw are “permeated” with references of Shaw being a “drug dealer.”

The social media activity and posts regarding those cases has created an “extraordinary degree of knowledge saturation in the jury pool,” according to the motion.

The motion includes several examples of Facebook comments on articles posted on television station and Gazette websites. Most of them mention Shaw’s federal conviction for drug trafficking and Shaw’s alleged involvement in Bagley’s death.

“To ensure that Mr. Shaw receives the impartial jury to which he is constitutionally entitled, his trial must be moved to a different media market,” the motion stated.

Bagley, 31, of Walker, disappeared Dec. 13, 2018, and his body was found March 1, 2019, buried in a yard in southeast Cedar Rapids.

Response

First Assistant Linn County Attorney Monica Slaughter, in her resistance to moving the trial out of Linn County, argues the media coverage in the case “has not been inflammatory. It has been uniformly factual and largely devoid of inaccuracies, denunciations of the defendant, or overly emotional coverage.”

Slaughter also said Facebook posts and comments on social media aren’t “media coverage” just because they are attached to traditional media articles.

The prosecution also disagreed with the defense’s argument that the actual media coverage has been “pervasive.”

The defense also failed to cite and the prosecution cannot find any controlling Iowa law regarding change of venue motions that address social media comments and posts, according to the prosecution motion. However, other courts have recognized that social media posts and comments don’t support moving a trial, the motion stated.

Slaughter said jury selection and pretrial questionnaires are tools that can “weed out” potential prejudices of jurors, which makes Shaw’s motion premature at this time. The appellate courts have said that jury selection should be “trusted to expose” any prejudice among jurors.

Shaw was charged last October after he was released from his federal prison sentence for trafficking marijuana in Cedar Rapids.

Shaw is accused of aiding and abetting Drew Wagner, 37, and Blahnik Church, 35 — both convicted in Bagley’s fatal stabbing — between Oct. 1, 2018, and Feb. 20, 2019, according to the complaint. He also is accused of hiring them to kill Bagley and paying them for the crime, the complaint stated.

Shaw has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail on $2 million bail pending trial.

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Past testimony

Wagner, during the trial for Blahnik Church, testified how he and Blahnik Church carried out Bagley’s killing on behalf of their mutual drug dealer, Shaw, as revenge because Bagley had robbed Shaw of money and drugs and beat him up.

Wagner said Bagley had stolen between $23,000 and up to $200,000 from Shaw. He also said he’d overheard Shaw asking Blahnik Church if he would kill Bagley for some amount of money — he didn’t hear the dollar amount.

In December 2018, Wagner got into a fight with Bagley and threw him up against a wall and held him as Blahnik Church stabbed Bagley multiple times. Blahnik Church brought the body back to Wagner’s house and buried it in the yard on Soutter Avenue SE, Wagner testified.

Bagley’s body, buried under a pile of lumber and a canoe by Wagner’s garage, 4069 Soutter Ave. SE, was excavated from the frozen ground by law enforcement March 1, 2019.

Blahnik Church is serving 57 years in prison for Bagley’s killing and is also serving time for assaulting another inmate while he was in the Linn County Jail.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com