RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — The criminal trial of Mercedes Carrera and her husband on multiple child sexual abuse charges was postponed again on Jan. 16, with a pretrial hearing now set after the fifth anniversary of their arrest.
According to court documents, the hearing is now scheduled for Feb. 16, with the earliest possible date for a trial being April 16.
Carrera and her husband, Jason Whitney, were arrested after a police raid of their Rancho Cucamonga home on Feb. 1, 2019. They have been in the county jail awaiting trial for just short of five years, held initially without bail and later, after they had liquidated their assets and had no source of income due to their incarceration, with bail set at $2 million for each.
The first pretrial hearing for the case took place in July 2022, with an Oct. 3, 2022 date agreed upon for the beginning of the jury trial. Since then, however, the trial date has been repeatedly vacated and postponed for over a year.
In the course of four recent hearings, Judge Katrina West reset the pretrial date to Sept. 29, then to Oct. 3, Oct. 13, Nov. 6, Nov. 17 and lastly to Jan. 16.
In November, XBIZ was informed that a new attorney, Robert Little, was representing Carrera.
Little told XBIZ that he is acting as a conflict board attorney, a private-practice lawyer appointed by the state in place of a public defender. Little did not comment on any other aspects of the case.
One of Carrera’s friends, identifying himself only as “Louie Bee,” also contacted XBIZ to share their podcast, titled “Behind the Walls With Mercedes Carrera.” The podcast features phone interviews with Carrera from the county jail, where she discusses her case, world events and the conditions faced by inmates in the San Bernardino County correctional system.
Her supporters also launched a “Free Mercedes Carrera” website, which includes documents presented to demonstrate alleged police misconduct during her arrest.
The website also includes a section titled “Faith,” about Carrera’s jailhouse embrace of Christianity. A handwritten letter purporting to be from Carerra states, “I truly repent of my time in the adult industry and any negative input it has had on the world, and strive to find a new life in Christ, our Lord and Savior, through whom we may be redeemed.”
From Jail, Carrera Rejects 'Postmodernism,' Adult Industry
The latest episode of the podcast features a 20-minute jailhouse phone call from Carrera on Jan. 19 where she criticizes the work of her lawyers, requests a change of courtrooms, offers her views about international politics and the legal system, and urges listeners to find God and reject what she calls “postmodernism.”
“I’ve had five years to assess my life, and realized I’m extremely, extremely penitent about my time in the adult industry,” Carrera says during the podcast episode. “I’m extremely penitent about my former ideology, because I see how that kind of liberal ideology, the adult industry, all of it is ruining America. All of it. So I believe at this point that God has put me in here to make things right with him. I believe God has greater plans for me, by taking me out of the adult industry, and so I’m grateful for that.”
For more of XBIZ’s coverage of the Mercedes Carrera case, click here.
