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Man Wants Trial Removed From Hibbing Due To Bias

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Dec 16, 2008 11:47 am US/Central

Man Wants Trial Removed From Hibbing Due To Bias

HIBBING, Minn. (AP) ― A former Hibbing Community College football player wants his sexual assault trial moved out of Hibbing to somewhere more racially diverse.

Andrew J. Williams of Milwaukee is charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in the October 2006 attack on 18-year-old Grand Rapids woman in a dormitory.

Three other men were also charged in the attack. Like the 22-year-old Williams, they are all black and from out-of-state. And like Williams, they have all pleaded not guilty.

Williams' attorneys claim the trial of a black man in a community as racially uniform as Hibbing for an attack on a local white woman would be "unavoidably biased."

Williams public defender was in St. Louis County District Court on Monday on the case. St. Louis County prosecutor Brian Simonson opposes moving the trial.

Judge Mark Starr says he expects to make a decision before Christmas.

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