News File Photo Bradley Avery, bottom, appears virtually in the 26th Circuit Court in March in this News file photo.

ALPENA — Increasing COVID-19 numbers nixed two trials scheduled to begin Wednesday in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court.

As of Tuesday, defendants and attorneys were ready to proceed with jury trials for Teresa Kortman, facing a pair of drug charges, and Shane Velasquez, accused of assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and resisting a police officer.

Judge Ed Black offered apologies to both defendants as he said their trials would have to wait. Alpena County’s positive COVID-19 test rate was over that recommended by the State Court Administrative Office as a cutoff for conducting in-person court.

“I’m trying like heck not to have us move back a phase,” said Black, announcing his decision to delay the trials, though he hopes to continue in-person hearings as long as possible.

It doesn’t make sense, Black said, to tell potential jurors to come to the courtroom when everyone else is telling them to stay away from each other.

Multiple counties around the state have postponed jury trials this spring because of rising test numbers, including a trial in Presque Isle County originally scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Alpena courts were able to hold a few jury trials since the beginning of March, but not as some local court participants feared would jam court dockets after a year’s hiatus from trials because of the pandemic. Several planned trials in the 26th Circuit Court were cancelled when defendants agreed to plea deals or were postponed for other reasons.

Kortman’s and Velasquez’s trials will be rescheduled as soon as possible.

Three criminal trials remain on the court’s docket for April 27.

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Also in court recently, an attorney for Bradley Avery, of Alpena, asked that the court dismiss a charge of possession of child pornography against the former Alpena County Fair Board treasurer. Avery is accused of secretly videotaping girls as they changed clothes during a fair pageant.

There’s no proof Avery knew about several images of underage girls found among adult pornography on his electronic devices along with the videos, his attorney argued in the motion.

A U.S. Secret Service agent testified at an examination in July that at least two child porn images were probably download onto Avery’s device without his knowledge while he was on a legitimate adult porn site.

Avery is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, when the judge may hear arguments on both sides and rule on whether the child porn possession charge should be thrown out.

Avery is also charged with capturing an image of an unclothed person and using a computer to commit a crime.

Attorney Dan White already argued in October that Avery shouldn’t have been bound over to Circuit Court on the child porn charge. That argument was rejected by the court.

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In another child pornography possession case, Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski on Monday filed a response to attorneys who claimed child porn found on a computer in Scott Henning’s home couldn’t be assumed to be his.

Earlier this month, attorney Alan Curtis argued that Henning, of Hubbard Lake, wasn’t the only user of the computer and couldn’t be linked to the computer at the time it was used to download more than 100 child porn images.

Curtis’s argument that the defendant had no possession or control of the computer was ridiculous, Muszynski said in a written response.

Henning is scheduled to appear in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court on Monday.