Julio Valencia

The arraignment for a California man charged with sexual abuse, sodomy and rape has been postponed until Feb. 1.

Julio Cesar Valencia, 65, of Sunnyvale, California, was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Limestone County Circuit Court on three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count each of first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy. He is accused of sexually abusing two of his three stepchildren and sexually abusing, raping and sodomizing a third stepchild when they all lived on Hine Street in Athens in the 1980s.

Lawyers for Valencia — Richard Jaffe, Michael Whisonant and Dan Totten — are seeking to have the new charges against their client dismissed. They claim, among other things, that the new charges are based on the same set of facts as the charges dismissed by the court in March for violating Valencia’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones and Deputy District Attorney Jim Ayers Jr. say the new charges are based on incidents of abuse not covered in the previously dismissed indictments.

Circuit Judge Chadwick Wise — the judge who dismissed Valencia’s remaining charge of first-degree sodomy in March due to lack of speedy trial — is expected to rule before Feb. 1 on the defense’s request to dismiss the new charges.