A Weld County judge has denied a motion to investigate media leaks in the case of Frederick’s Christopher Watts, who made national headlines after he was arrested last month on suspicion of murder in the deaths of his pregnant wife and two young children.

John Walsh and Kathryn Herold, Watts’ defense attorneys, filed a motion Aug. 29 asking the court to have “the government” investigate extrajudicial statements that could prejudice a jury in the case.

The motion included a number of news articles citing “sources close to the investigation,” including one that cites a “Frederick police source” and contains information still not available to the defense attorneys.

While the defense had not yet received any discovery by Sept. 4, “a source from the Frederick Police Department continues to feed the media materially prejudicial, extrajudicial ‘information’ about the ongoing investigation,” Walsh and Herold argued in a supplement to their motion.

However, Weld County District Judge Marcelo Kopcow wrote in the denial, filed on Sept. 10, that the defense failed to show any court violations or evidence of the defendant suffering from prejudice.

Read more at the Daily Camera.