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	Swami Trial Delayed By Austin American-statesman Eric Dexheimer October 6, 2009 http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/investigative/entries/2009/10/06/swami_trial_delayed_again.html The criminal trial of Prakashanand Saraswati, the Hindu guru accused of groping two teenage girls living at his ashram south of Austin in the 1990s, has been moved to early next year. The trial had been scheduled to start on November 2. The new date: January 11, 2010. If the trial does get underway then, it will be approaching two years since Prakashanand was arrested, in April 2008, as he walked off an airplane in Washington, D.C. Since the 20 counts of indecency with a child were filed against him by the Hays County District Attorney’s office, hearings and other appointments in his case have been canceled or reset a dozen times. Although no official reason for the latest postponement was given, one possible explanation is that one of the guru’s accusers who lives out-of-state just gave birth, which would have made it complicated for her to travel so soon. The new trial date setting comes on the heels of a series of significant legal filings in the case. On Monday, the Hays County prosecutor’s office filed a motion that hinted at one of the tactics being pursued by Prakashanand’s lawyers: “The State anticipates the Defense will attempt to introduce evidence or ask questions regarding previous sexual conduct on the part of the victim in this case.” A second document listed 14 witnesses the prosecution anticipates calling to testify at trial, including several residents of the ashram and a handful of executives of JKP-Barsana Dham, the non-profit that oversees Prakashanand’s organization. The executives may be asked to produce financial and real estate documents, according to the filing. The ashram sits on approximately 200 acres near Driftwood. In a separate but related legal action, the guru is appealing state District Court Judge Charles Ramsay’s decision, upheld on initial appeal, prohibiting Prakashanand from setting foot in Barsana Dham, which he founded in the early 1990s. That case is pending in the state’s 3rd Court of Appeals.
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