Diamond Reynolds pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges alleging she assaulted a woman with a hammer in St. Paul along with two accomplices last winter.
The plea was entered at the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center as Reynolds, 27, stood next to two of her attorneys.
Also during the hearing, her attorney, Karlowba Adams Powell, asked the judge if it would be OK for Reynolds to travel out of the state and country in the coming months to make various appearances.
One such trip will take Reynolds and her daughter to London on an all-expenses-paid trip, Powell told the judge.
Assistant Washington County Attorney Siv Yurichuk, the prosecutor on the case, said she had no objections to the travel as she didn’t believe Reynolds was a flight risk.
Reynolds received national attention in July when she live-streamed on Facebook the immediate aftermath of her boyfriend Philando Castile’s fatal shooting by St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights.
Yanez was recently acquitted by a jury of manslaughter charges in the case. Reynolds was among many witnesses who testified for the state at his trial.
Her next step in her own legal battle will be filing a string of motions related to what her other attorney, Mike Padden, described as the shaky merits of the state’s case.
Most important, he said, Reynolds will be filing a motion to dismiss the charges against her because he maintains she wasn’t even at the location where the alleged assault took place and said his client has evidence to prove it.
Cellphone data extracted from her phone by police and analyzed by an expert hired by Reynolds’ attorneys indicates she was miles away from the scene of the incident, Padden said.
“Look, the bottom line is she was not there,” Padden said. “How is the state going to explain technology that places my client miles away from the assault scene?”
He went on to say that he believes the accusations against Reynolds are the result of mistaken identity.
The motion to dismiss, as well as other motions related to the nature of the charges and the state’s handling of certain evidence in the case, will be filed in the near future, Padden said.
Yurichuk could not be immediately reached for comment on the defense’s planned motions.
Police arrested Reynolds in early March in connection with a Feb. 28 assault in St. Paul. Also arrested in the case were Chnika Blair and Dyamond Richardson.
Reynolds and the two other women are accused of assaulting a 24-year-old woman with whom they reportedly had a dispute.
Reynolds faces charges of second- and third-degree assault with a dangerous weapon for her role in the alleged incident. The other women are charged with aiding and betting second- and third-degree assault.
Reynolds next hearing in the matter will take place Aug. 4.