A federal judge denied a spur-of-the-moment request Monday for separate trials for former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and his wife.
The Washington Post reported that Maureen McDonnell’s defense attorney, William Burck, argued after the court returned from lunch that evidence given in testimony solicited by the governor’s attorneys would prove unhelpful to the first lady on the charge that she obstructed justice.
Before the court broke for lunch, a former cabinet member close to the governor testified that Maureen McDonnell was “very difficult, very demanding, very diva-ish.”
U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer denied the motion without offering any reasoning for his decision. Spencer had also denied a request to grant separate trials to the couple last summer.