SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A couple being held on charges of abducting a girl more than 18 years ago and keeping her in their backyard wants permission to visit each other in the jail, a defense lawyer said Thursday.
Phillip and Nancy Garrido have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was 11, raping her and confining her and the daughters she bore by Phillip Garrido to a hidden compound in the backyard of their Antioch home.
Stephen Tapson, the court-appointed attorney representing Nancy Garrido, told The Associated Press that he and Phillip Garrido's public defender made the visitation request in twin motions filed Wednesday in El Dorado Superior Court.
The couple is being held separately in jail. He said jail officials so far had refused to let the two inmates meet.
"If one of them were out on bail, they could visit each other, so let them visit each other in jail, just to say hello to each other," Tapson said.
Tapson said he and Deputy Public Defender Susan Gellman also filed papers seeking to compel prosecutors to tell them where Dugard is living and if she has a lawyer of her own so they can speak with her while preparing defenses for the Garridos.
"We would like to talk to her, obviously, and they are not telling us where she is and she doesn't have a lawyer that we know of," Tapson said.
Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for Dugard, said Dugard is represented by the state. She had no comment on the defense motion seeking access to Dugard or her lawyer because she had not seen it.
The El Dorado District Attorney's office confirmed receiving the motions but would not comment on them.
A hearing on the motions was scheduled for Feb. 26.
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