{"id":50430,"date":"2020-11-13T20:25:52","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T03:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trial-for-man-accused-of-killing-cyclist-ben-sonntag-delayed\/"},"modified":"2020-11-14T03:25:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T03:25:52","slug":"trial-for-man-accused-of-killing-cyclist-ben-sonntag-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/trial-for-man-accused-of-killing-cyclist-ben-sonntag-delayed\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial for man accused of killing cyclist Ben Sonntag delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=c5e293ca-0cb2-4eb5-8d33-168e8e5c0a34&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"Schneider\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Schneider<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The trial for a La Plata County man accused of striking and killing professional cyclist Benjamin Sonntag was delayed until March because of concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Cordell Schneider, who was 19 at the time, was supposed to start a trial in November.<\/p>\n<p>But both the prosecution and Schneider\u2019s defense attorney asked about the trial be delayed because of various concerns related to the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Joel Fry, Schneider\u2019s defense attorney, said the pandemic would likely result in fewer people showing up for jury duty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to have a jury panel representative of the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sixth Judicial Deputy District Attorney David Ottman, prosecuting the case, said Sonntag\u2019s family in Germany and Sweden is unable to travel to the U.S. during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(The District Attorney\u2019s Office) appreciates the need for the family to want to be here in person and attend the trial,\u201d Ottman said.<\/p>\n<p>District Judge Todd Norvell, overseeing the case, rescheduled the five-day trial for March 22, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say Schneider was driving a pickup truck on County Road 105 in western La Plata County around noon March 4 when he struck and killed Sonntag, who was riding his bike at the time.<\/p>\n<p>An investigation into the crash found Schneider was traveling an estimated 65 mph in a 35 mph zone when he lost control of the truck, struck Sonntag and then went down a steep embankment before hitting a tree and coming to rest.<\/p>\n<p>Schneider was charged with vehicular homicide, a Class 4 felony, and reckless driving.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/durangoherald.com\/articles\/332220\">On July 17, Schneider pleaded not guilty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jromeo@durangoherald.com\">jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prosecutors, defense both raise concerns over COVID-19 pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,133,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50430"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}