HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — Cory Bigsby now has a team of four attorneys fighting for him, as he faces 30 charges of child abuse and neglect. Bigsby is the father of 4-year-old Codi, who was reported missing back on January 31 and has yet to be found.
The charges Cory faces are unrelated to the child’s disappearance.
At a hearing on July 22, defense attorney Amina Matheny-Willard said that three other attorneys will now join the defense team. They are: Curtis Brown, Kenneth Singleton and Peter Hanson.
“We’re getting as much fire power as we need to fight this entire system!” Matheny-Willard said.
She stands by her client’s right to bond and intends to ask for it for a fourth time now that the case has moved to Hampton Circuit Court.
Bigsby now faces 30 charges total. Matheny-Willard argues these charges would typically amount to a call to social services for investigation, or a misdemeanor.
“It’s really an effort to villainize him, to demonize him; so really as far as the additional charges, that effort just continues,” she said.
Matheny-Willard told WAVY that one of Bigsby’s new attorneys, Mr. Hanson, is an appeals and Supreme Court expert. She said he will sit in on the bond hearing in case they decide to take it to a higher court. That will depend on what Judge James Hawks decides first. The retired judge from Portsmouth has been called in and is now presiding over the case.
There is a status hearing currently scheduled for August 12 to pick dates for the jury trial.
