Aaron isn't a witness the State is messing with from what I know, and to be fair a charge for tampering is more shit to deal with and they've already got Balldo dead to rights. What this conduct can lead to is "You're going to jail for XX days in exchange we don't file tampering charges"
Do we know that for sure? He doesn't seem particularly useful unless he can contradict some part of Nick's defense, but unless I've missed it, the state hasn't submitted any witness list yet.
It'll be a few months before their trial witness list is due in the criminal case, but as a window into the state's thinking it's at least notable that their witness list for the CHIPS trial most definitely did list Aaron, so they must have had some reason to believe he could add enough useful information to outweigh whatever acceptable damage would be done on cross:
Another unknown unknown is how much Aaron's testimony would add that he still hasn't disclosed publicly, and he has specifically said there is more that he's still holding back. Just like how it took the cokestream and the May arrest for him to finally spill everything he'd been hiding since April left in April, after April's new charges in July he said on his show "I guess I can say it now" and admitted that his contact(s) at the county had been telling him for a long time that she was going to be charged eventually but he had to be a "good soldier" instructed to "keep it under his hat", and then in the same show or a show around that time he teased at least that the audience would be pissed at "all three of them" whenever one last thing comes out that he still couldn't talk about. I'm going from memory here so the quotes may be off by just a titch but I'll try to dig for the exact clip later.
Whatever that one last thing was, he doesn't appear to have spilled it yet, and now that the throuple has since succeeded in getting useful idiots in Stearns County to gag him from saying anything even "indirectly" referring to Kayla, it follows that the one last thing making "all three of them" look bad means he won't be able to answer any questions about it until either A) the Stearns case is fully resolved or B) until he is compelled to testify publicly in a Kandiyohi trial with whatever immunity goes along with that, whichever comes sooner. Either way, that one last thing may be why both the defense and the state seem to regard Aaron as a more useful and likely witness than he appears from our standpoint.
EDIT: Corrected bungling of which quotes were about what. It's a ton of shows to dig through for a clip but I'll keep looking.
Aaron isn't a witness the State is messing with from what I know, and to be fair a charge for tampering is more shit to deal with and they've already got Balldo dead to rights.
Do we know that for sure? He doesn't seem particularly useful unless he can contradict some part of Nick's defense, but unless I've missed it, the state hasn't submitted any witness list yet.
Apologies for double-posting but the clips took awhile to find from different shows and it's too late to edit. As Exhibit A just for some background and context, the first part about what he was instructed to hold back was in his July 23rd evening show timestamped below at 56:14 and transcribed below:
I guess I can say it now! I was told by very credible sources. I won't say who, but I was told by very credible sources a long time ago - I've been sitting on this for a while - that April was going to be charged. So every time, you know, that's why, like, when Keanu and those two turned I'm like, you guys are fucking retarded. If you're buying this shit you're a dummy, um, and a lot of other people. You know, I had to hold that one under my hat. I had to be a good soldier, um, but yeah, I knew that she was, uh, I'm actually surprised it was only fifth degree.
In hindsight I guess he didn't specify a contact at the county per se, but I remembered inferring as much at the time since he made it sound like his "reliable sources" had inside information on charging decisions, so who else could it be?
Then as Exhibit B, the second part about the one last thing that Aaron has still had to hold back but will make everyone pissed at the "three of them" was in the following day's morning show timestamped at 2:02:30 below and transcribed below:
She ain't pleading guilty, because - or if she does plead guilty those two are now fucked. I mean they're fucked anyway, don't get me wrong, but this throws an interesting wrinkle into it. There's something - there's something else that I can't say, that I will when it's over, and it'll make you so angry at the three of them, especially the kid part of it. It'll make you even angrier about the kid part of it, um, but there's something I was told about what - what all three of them could have done, and it'll make - it'll make your head spin and it'll make you go well these people deserve fucking everything they get, um, and when this is - when this is all said and done, I'll remember to bring it back to ya.
Again he didn't specify his source that time either, but taken with the context of the prior night's comments he seemed to insinuate that it was someone affiliated with investigators or the prosecution telling him not to tip their hand about it until some later date. This inference is bolstered further by later revelations on Aaron's show and on Kino Casino that Detective Pomplun was actively investigating potential witness tampering enough to contact Aaron and later PPP about how to access and archive Ethan Ralph's Telegram posts, none of which would have been a worthwhile use of Pomplun's time unless Aaron was indeed still anticipated to be a state's witness.
Why they have considered his testimony useful in a simple possession case is anybody's guess, but it sounds like he can't wait to tell us when the time's right. What would be the changed circumstances under which he eventually can?
