KINGFISHER — The defense attorney in the case of a former Hennessey High School baseball coach tried two times Wednesday to have Assistant District Attorney Bryan Slabotsky removed from the case.

Both attempts by Tulsa attorney Richard O’Carroll were denied in Kingfisher County District Court by Woods County Associate District Judge Mickey Hadwiger.

Mike Conway, who is facing 22 sex-related counts on allegations he had a sexual relationship with a former student when she was a teenager, was in district court Wednesday for a final hearing before a July 18 trial.

He is facing one felony count of forcible oral sodomy, one felony count of second-degree rape by instrumentation, 10 felony counts of lewd molestation and 10 felony counts of lewd or indecent proposals to a child under 16. According to an affidavit filed in the case, Conway admitted to numerous sexual encounters with the girl when she was in eighth grade, continuing until the summer of her graduation in 2005.

Wednesday’s hearing began at about 9:10 a.m. with O’Carroll’s petition to disqualify Slabotsky from the trial. The Tulsa attorney previously had entered the petition July 17, according to Kingfisher County District Court records.

Hadwiger denied O’Carroll’s motion. He said there was no evidence to support Slabotsky’s disqualification.

About three hours later, O’Carroll asked for Hadwiger once again to hear him on the petition. O’Carroll said the alleged victim’s family has been collaborating with Slabotsky since proceedings in the case began, and that it was a “bad dynamic” that needed to be looked into.

Hadwiger once again denied O’Carroll’s petition, saying he hadn’t heard anything new that would change his mind about the court’s decision.

The other major topic of Wednesday’s hearing was two recorders and a laptop that had been used to record conversations with Conway and produce CD copies of the conversations. O’Carroll, speaking to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Martin Solorzano, said it recently had been revealed to him a recording of the conversation between OSBI agents and Conway had been found on Solorzano’s laptop.

Solorzano previously had testified there was no recording of the conversation on the laptop when it was handed over to be examined by forensic experts.

However, the experts uncovered the recording on the laptop.

Both O’Carroll and Slabotsky asked Solorzano why there was a recording on the laptop if he originally had testified there wasn’t. Solorzano said weeks after his initial testimony, he clicked on a small balloon on the bottom of his Dell laptop that said “there are files waiting to be written.” Solorzano said he ignored the message “numerous times” before finally clicking on it. When he did, he discovered the copy of the conversation on his computer.

After he discovered the file, Solorzano said he dragged the file into the case file folder on his computer desktop.

Slabotsky asked Solorzano if he had edited the file, to which Solorzano replied “no.”

O’Carroll, however, wasn’t too taken by Solorzano’s testimony. “You want this court to believe you left it on your desktop, and then dragged it over to the Conway file?” O’Carroll asked. “So, we have to take your word for this, don’t we?”

George Patrick Kennedy, an OSBI agent in charge of the organization’s computer crime unit, testified Wednesday when he examined Solorzano’s recorder, he found it had an unorganized file system. “My assumption is the device is broken,” Kennedy told O’Carroll.

After a recess in the afternoon, the court returned to hear Conway, who took the stand at the request of O’Carroll.

Conway testified OSBI agents came to his house on June 2 last year, after his wife had received a call from the alleged victim’s mother.

Conway said the only person other than himself inside the home when OSBI agents arrived was his 10-year-old daughter, who was asked to leave by the agents.

O’Carroll asked Conway if he at any point told the agents he was uncomfortable or didn’t want to do the interview. Conway responded by saying a few seconds to a few minutes after the recorder stopped, he did tell them he hadn’t wanted to talk to them. He said he told the female agent, Beth Green, “two or three times.” Conway said the agents told him it would be better in the long run had he talked to them.

Several times during O’Carroll’s questioning Conway said he had felt “intimidated” by the OSBI agents.

Slabotsky then questioned Conway as to why he hadn’t mentioned he was uncomfortable during the 28 minutes the recorder was on.

Conway said, “I didn’t know I could.”

Slabotsky affirmed with Conway that Conway had invited the OSBI agents into his home, and questioned whether he was intimidated by the agents directly or if “his guilty conscience” was behind that feeling.

“I had an idea, I wasn’t sure though,” Conway said.

At the end of Wednesday’s proceedings, which lasted into mid-afternoon, Hadwiger, O’Carroll and Slabotsky gathered for a private pre-trial conference. There are a few pending motions in the case that will be discussed privately between the three on Tuesday.

The jury trial in the case is scheduled for 9 a.m. July 18.