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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A new grand jury has indicted three men accused of lying about the disappearance of Utah County teenager Kiplyn Davis.
The new panel issued the indictments on Thursday to replace action taken by a former grand jury that indicted the men after its 18-month term had twice been extended. The life of a grand jury with the same panel members can be extended only once, for six months.
The mistake was discovered April 30, a day before Timmy Brent Olsen, 28, was to go on trial on charges of lying to the FBI and the original grand jury about what he knew or told others about the girl's disappearance in 1995.
The error postponed Olsen's trial, now set for July 10 on 16 perjury counts.
Separate federal perjury trials are scheduled later this year for David Rucker Leifson, 29, and Christopher Neal Jeppson, 29. Perjury carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each count.
Leifson was accused of lying to the grand jury when he testified he never confronted Olsen to demand he stop telling others that Leifson was the last person seen with Davis.
Prosecutors say Jeppson repeatedly lied about his whereabouts on the day Davis disappeared.
Two other defendants, Garry Von Blackmore, 26, and Scott Brunson, 29, have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury and are scheduled to be sentenced in June.
Kiplyn, a 15-year-old sophomore at Spanish Fork High School, disappeared May 2, 1995, and is presumed dead. After a local police investigation stalled, a federal grand jury spent more than two years hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses. In 2005, grand jurors indicted the five men, most of them former classmates of Kiplyn, on perjury charges.
Olsen will face a murder charged lodged by the Utah County Attorney's Office after his federal perjury charges are resolved. Olsen is accused of telling several friends that he raped and killed Kiplyn and buried her body, according to court documents, but denying it to the FBI and a grand jury.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
