Stephan Sterns' defense claims it has 'confidential information; wants to delay upcoming court hearing
Stephan Sterns, accused of raping and murdering 13-year-old Madeline Soto, is seeking to delay a scheduled suppression hearing, citing newly obtained "confidential information," according to court records.
The defense hopes to prevent jurors from seeing evidence from Sterns' phone and Google account, which they claim was unlawfully obtained, though prosecutors argue he gave consent.
A hearing to determine whether the delay will be granted is set for Tuesday.
ORLANDO, Fla. - Stephan Sterns, the man accused of sexually assaulting and killing 13-year-old Madeline Soto, is asking a judge to delay his upcoming court hearing due to "confidential information" his attorneys have recently obtained, according to new court records.
The defense claims they will not have time to prepare for an upcoming court appearing, citing the newly-obtained information, a recently-filed motion reads. State prosecutors have objected to the potential delay.
What we know
The suppression hearing scheduled for Wednesday comes after Sterns' public defender asked a judge to bar jurors from seeing the evidence collected from Sterns' phone and Google account, due to investigators allegedly unlawfully seizing and searching his phone.
However, the prosecution claims that Sterns gave consent and the evidence from both the phone and Google account were properly obtained.
Now Sterns and his attorneys hope to delay the suppression hearing due to this new "confidential information" they have related to the case.
In a new motion seeking a delay, Sterns' attorney wrote:
"Since filing [the suppression motions in February], the Defense has come into possession of confidential information that may impact the presentation of evidence at that hearing."
"The Defense will not have time to develop this evidence before the currently scheduled Motion to Suppress scheduled for hearing on April 23, 2025."
"As such, Defense is requesting to continue these hearings to be reset for a later date."
Click to open this PDF in a new window.
A hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday to determine if Wednesday's suppression hearing will be delayed.
According to court records, the prosecution objects the delay.
What we don't know
No details have been provided by Sterns' attorney regarding the "confidential information."
Watch: Stephan Sterns 2-hour interrogation amid Madeline Soto disappearance
Madeline Soto update: Will the media, public be banned from Stephan Sterns' pretrial court hearings?
Maddie Soto update: Stephen Sterns jailhouse calls released
Judge denies Stephan Sterns' motion to ban the press, public from his pre-trial hearings
Stephan Sterns was the boyfriend of Jennifer Soto, Madeline's mother.
According to court documents and law enforcement, Sterns lived with Jennifer, Madeline, and another roommate on and off. He would sometimes take Madeline Soto to school and would also sometimes sleep in the same bed as Madeline and Jennifer, court records said.
In Feb. 2024, he reportedly took Madeline Soto to school while the girl's mother stayed back at the house. Hours later when Madeline's mom went to pick her up from school, she was told Madeline never made it to school that day.
Sterns is charged with first-degree murder in the death of the girl. He is also charged in a separate case with some 60 counts of sexual abuse and possession of child sexual abuse material after thousands of graphic photos, some including Maddie, were found on his cell phone and saved to a Google Drive account, court records said.
He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
His trial on the first-degree murder charge is currently scheduled to begin on Sept. 22, 2025.
Madeline "Maddie" Soto was a 13-year-old girl who was reported missing on Feb. 26, 2024. Maddie had just celebrated her 13th birthday on February 22, days before she was reported missing.
Madeline was a student at Hunter's Creek Middle School in Orlando. Though, she lived with her mom, Sterns, and an adult roommate in Kissimmee.
Her body was found in a grassy area in Osceola County on March 1.
Sunday, Feb. 25: Madeline Soto's 13th birthday celebration
Monday, Feb. 26: Madeline Soto was last seen at 8:30 a.m., didn't make it to school
Tuesday, Feb. 27: Madeline Soto's missing poster was released, officials begin search
Tuesday night, Feb. 27: Madeline Soto's mom, Jenn Soto, speaks with FOX 35; would-be suspect appears in background
Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 28: Orange County Sheriff John Mina hosts press conference about ongoing search
Wednesday night, Feb. 28: Mom's boyfriend Stephan Sterns arrested on unrelated charges, named 'prime suspect' in Madeline Soto case
Thursday, Feb. 29: Kissimmee Police Department releases Stephan Sterns' arrest affidavit
Thursday, Feb. 29: Body language expert assesses Stephan Sterns' body language in Zoom interview with Jenn Soto
Friday morning, March 1: Stephan Sterns dodges questions from FOX 35 while being transferred from Orange County to Osceola County
Friday afternoon, March 1: Officials say they're 'confident' that Madeline Soto is dead
Friday afternoon, March 1: Multi-agency search for Madeline Soto near area where Stephen Sterns was last seen
Friday afternoon, March 1: Body found amid search for Madeline Soto
Saturday morning, March 2: Stephan Sterns waives first appearance in court
Wednesday, March 6: New court documents allege Stephan Sterns may have abused Madeline Soto years before her disappearance, death
Tuesday, March 12: State Attorney's Office files 60 additional charges against Stephan Sterns
Thursday, March 21: Kissimmee Police Chief holds press conference with updates about investigation
Wednesday, April 4: State Attorney Andrew Bain explains why more information has not been released into the Madeline Soto death investigation
Wednesday, April 4: FOX 35 obtained the 911 calls from the morning 13-year-old Madeline Soto went missing from Orange County
Saturday, April 15: Maddie Soto's family and community members gathered at a vigil Saturday to remember the 13-year-old who was found dead days after she was reported missing in February.
Wednesday, April 24: An Osceola County judge granted a motion to continue the pretrial for Stephan Sterns.
Wednesday, April 24: A new trial date has been set for Stephan Sterns after an Osceola County judge granted the defense's motion for more time during a pretrial hearing.
Thursday, April 25: Stephan Sterns has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 13-year-old Florida girl Madeline Soto.
Monday, June 10: The State Attorney's Office intends to seek the death penalty against Stephan Sterns, the man accused of killing his girlfriend's daughter, 13-year-old Madeline "Maddie" Soto, according to court records – should he be convicted.
Wednesday, July 10: Attorneys for Stephan Sterns, who was charged for the murder of 13-year-old Madeline Soto, have filed motions to continue both trials.
Thursday, August 22: New police interviews with Stephan Sterns, Jennifer Soto from hours after teen went 'missing'
Friday, August 23: New documents obtained by FOX 35 this week show that the teen's mother may have known about that alleged abuse.
Monday, August 26: Madeline Soto's mom admits to knowing Stephan Sterns was 'grooming and abusing' her daughter, documents show.
Monday, August 26: New documents shed light on how Madeline Soto's body got to the rural location it was eventually found at, and, ultimately, how she died.
Monday, October 14: Trial date set for Stephan Sterns
Wednesday, October 23: Kissimmee police revealed new information in the ongoing investigation. Alleged killer Stephan Sterns secretly filmed naked roommate, officials say.
Friday, October 25: "I didn't start it" Those are the words Stephen Sterns told his parents in a recorded call from jail, audio which was released to FOX 35 Orlando.
Thursday, February 6: Stephan Sterns and his attorney file dozens of motions ahead of his murder trial set to begin in September. Asking to strike the death penalty and to have all physical restraint devices removed from Sterns during trial proceedings.
Wednesday, February 12: Stephan Sterns wants phone evidence tossed ahead of child sex crimes trial.
Wednesday, February 19: Stephan Sterns asks judge to ban public, press from court hearing.
Wednesday, February 26: Remembering the 13-year-old one year later; accused killer preps for trial.
Tuesday, March 4: New details released in the death of Madeline Soto, one year since the initial report
Wednesday, March 5: Watch: Stephan Sterns 2-hour interrogation amid Madeline Soto disappearance
Thursday, March 20: Madeline Soto update: Will the media, public be banned from Stephan Sterns' pretrial court hearings?
Friday, March 21: Maddie Soto update: Stephen Sterns jailhouse calls released
Thursday, March 27:Judge denies Stephan Sterns' motion to ban the press, public from his pre-trial hearings
The Source
The information in this article comes from the Orange County Sheriff's Office, the North Port Police Department, documents from the Orange County Clerk of Courts and Osceola County Clerk of Courts.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
10 hours ago
- Fox News
Tomi Lahren: Jussie Smollett has ‘learned nothing' from MAGA hate crime claim
The 'Outnumbered' panel discusses Jussie Smollett's defense of his claim that he was the subject of a hate crime in 2019.
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
Gerry Spence, Courtroom Showman in Buckskin, Dies at 96
Gerry Spence, the buckskinned legal maverick who called himself America's best trial lawyer and dramatized that claim with a white Stetson, a dazzling courtroom record and a score of books that gunned down his opponents all over again, died on Wednesday at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 96. His son Kent Spence confirmed the death. Mr. Spence often boasted that he had never lost a criminal case with a jury trial, as either a defense lawyer or a prosecutor, and that he had not lost a civil case since 1969. That was not actually true, but it was not far off. Several of his notable civil verdicts were overturned on appeal, and in 1969, when he was said to be drinking heavily because of marital troubles, he lost three cases in a row. But in the tradition of Perry Mason, he seemed unbeatable — not only to courtroom foes but also to lawyers who attended his seminars, and to Americans who read his best-selling books and tuned in to his television programs and network commentaries, most notably on the O.J. Simpson murder case. He sometimes poked fun at his own cowboy imagery — the snakeskin boots and 10-gallon hat, the long silvery-blond hair and buckskin-fringed jackets that conjured up Buffalo Bill Cody. But he exploited it all, often in seemingly hopeless criminal cases. A man who shot his former wife in front of eight witnesses: Not guilty. The white supremacist charged with killing a federal agent at Ruby Ridge in Idaho: Not guilty. Imelda Marcos, the widow of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, accused of looting the Philippine treasury of $200 million for a lifestyle that included thousands of pairs of shoes and real estate in Manhattan: Not guilty. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
Massachusetts cops close off popular public beach over ‘dead body' that ended up being a crumpled blanket
It's no 'Weekend at Bernie's.' Massachusetts police spent Wednesday morning roping off parts of a popular public beach after receiving reports of an 'unattended death' that turned out to be a crumpled-up blanket, authorities said. Massachusetts State Police arrived at Revere Beach, a summer hotspot just 6 miles northwest of Boston, around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to probe the grim report. Massachusetts State Police reported finding a dead body on a beach outside of Boston, but it was just a blanket. Google Video captured by a passerby showed five officials standing on the beach cordoning off a large section of the three-mile shore with yellow caution tape while a sixth person waded into the sea. A police boat was also further out off the shore, according to the footage. Police originally described the situation as an 'unattended death.' They said they found what they believed to be a dead body on the beach wrapped in a sheet, according to Boston 25. But when officers opened the bulky, corpse-shaped blanket — expecting to make a grisly discovery, it was empty, cops later corrected. 'It's been confirmed that the item in question is a large blanket rolled up. There has been no body of any type recovered,' Sergeant Gregory Jones confirmed in a statement to the local outlet. It's unclear how the corpse-shaped blanket wound up on the beach. Wangkun Jia – It's unclear how the blanket turned up on the shore in the first place, or if it was left by a spacey beachgoer the night before. The hasty authorities turned all further questions over to the Massachusetts district attorney's office. In a similarly odd case in Idaho earlier this month, cops there spent three hours searching for a reported corpse in a river, only to find a life-sized sex doll floating downstream. The team spared no expense and even rolled out a full drone search while looking for what was nothing more than an inflatable plaything. Still, authorities had no regrets, noting how disastrous the situation could've been if a real person had fallen into the water and they'd opted not to go 'all out.'
