PHOENIX — Opening statements are scheduled Wednesday at the trial of a founder of the Minuteman border-watch movement on charges that he sexually abused two young girls.
Christopher Allen Simcox, 55, is charged with molesting a 5-year-old girl and engaging in sexual conduct with a 6-year-old girl during an 11-month period ending in May 2013.
He denies the allegations and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
He drew the ire of prosecutors and victim representatives when he insisted that he should be allowed to personally question the girls while they are on the witness stand.
Simcox isn't an attorney, but he is nonetheless representing himself in the case.
Prosecutors argue that letting Simcox question the girls would cause them emotional distress. They wanted to have an attorney pose the questions on Simcox's behalf.
In the end, though, Simcox abandoned his plan to question the girls.
He has been in jail since his June 2013 arrest. He was denied bail because he was suspected of sexually abusing children younger than 15 — allegations that make him ineligible for bond in Arizona.
The Minuteman movement stepped into the spotlight in 2005 as illegal immigration heated up as a national political issue and Minuteman volunteers fanned out along the nation's southern border to watch for illegal crossings and report them to federal agents.
The movement splintered after Simcox and another co-founder parted ways and headed up separate groups.
Simcox, who once served as publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper, went on to briefly enter Arizona's 2010 U.S. Senate primary against incumbent John McCain but dropped out of the race. His name didn't appear on the ballot.
More than a decade ago, Simcox was sentenced to two years of probation for misdemeanor convictions in federal court for carrying a concealed handgun at the Coronado National Memorial near the Arizona Mexico border in January 2003.
