Arthur Wayne Blood, the Stanfield man accused of sex abuse with his then-minor girlfriend and other underage females as well as the attempted murder of his alleged victims, finally will have his day in court.

Judge Garry Reynolds has set the attempted murder trial for 9 a.m. July 27-31 and the sex abuse trial for 9 a.m. Aug. 3-7 in Courtroom 5 at Stafford Hansell Government Center in Hermiston.

Defense attorney Daniel Stephens wants the two cases to be tried separately. Stephens is concerned about past bad acts being mingled with the attempted murder charges against Blood.

Umatilla County District Attorney Dean Gushwa wants the trials consolidated.

Reynolds set a hearing for arguments regarding consolidation for 9 a.m. May 22.

Reynolds originally ruled against consolidation of the trials because the attempted murder charges were filed on the eve of Blood’s sex abuse trial.

Reynolds told the attorneys at the time he wanted to keep the original trial moving, but now wants to hear arguments from both sides regarding consolidation.

Blood was arrested Jan. 15, 2008, and is jailed in the Umatilla County Jail at $1 million bond.

Within a week of his arrest, a Umatilla County grand jury returned multiple felony counts against Blood, including five counts of using a child in display of sexually explicit conduct, five counts of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse and five counts of second-degree encouraging child sex abuse.

On Dec. 3, 2008, the district attorney modified most of the charges to include five counts of first-degree child sex abuse, five counts of second-degree encouraging child sex abuse, five counts of use of child sexual display, five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, four counts of third-degree sodomy, one count of third-degree rape and one count of third-degree sexual abuse.