Settlement conference to be set for Joel Rogers

Published 1:00 pm Tuesday, May 24, 2022

LA GRANDE — A settlement conference is set to be scheduled for a La Grande man who faces nearly 30 counts of sex crimes.

The settlement conference will be conducted for Joel Phoenix Rogers, 19, who was arrested by the La Grande police on charges of 28 counts of sex crimes and two counts of strangulation on April 22. Rogers has been lodged in the Union County Jail since the arrest.

Rogers’s attorney, Jared Boyd, requested the settlement conference and Union County District Attorney Kelsie McDaniel agreed to it during a plea hearing on Monday, May 23.

The settlement conference may be conducted in June, McDaniel said.

Police booked Rogers in the Union County Jail on three counts of first-degree rape; five counts of second-degree rape; two counts of strangulation; three counts of first-degree sex abuse; five counts of second-degree sex abuse; two counts of first-degree sodomy; four counts of luring a minor; four counts of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct; and two counts of attempted third-degree sodomy.

The state alleges Rogers committed the crimes between July 1 and Nov. 18, 2021, according to Union County Circuit Court documents. The victim was a juvenile.

At the settlement conference both parties involved will be put in separate rooms. The defendant and his attorney will be in one room and the occupants of a second room will be Union County District Attorney’s office representatives and the victim or the victim’s representative or both. A judge will then walk between the rooms, alternately talking to the parties while participating in a form of mediation

“It will be like shuttle diplomacy,” McDaniel said.

If the parties can reach a resolution, then a trial may be avoided, McDaniel said.