By ANDY GARDNER

CANTON -- St. Lawrence County’s chief assistant district attorney says his office is objecting to Ed Narrow’s motion for a special prosecutor because they don’t see any conflicts of interest.

The hearing was held because the embattled DA is objecting to Narrow’s motion to recuse her from his cases. Narrow wants the special prosecutor because he believes Rain has a vendetta against him.

After hearing from two witnesses on Thursday morning, Acting County Court Judge Derek Champagne gave Narrow until 4 p.m. April 4 and Rain until 4 p.m. April 6 to hand in written closing arguments.

“I think it’s pretty clear … generally the DA’s office has the responsibility of prosecuting crimes in SLC. We don’t see any reason there should be a special prosecutor in all Mr. Narrow’s cases,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney Keith Massey Jr. in a Friday phone interview. Rain deferred comment to him, who along with her argued the case and questioned witnesses in front of Judge Derek Champagne.

Among Narrow’s reasons for believing Rain has a vendetta against her is that she sent a case to a grand jury where she alleged he committed a crime by misrepresenting facts while signing Oral “Nick” Hillary out of jail and posting his bail. Hillary last fall was found not guilty of murdering 12-year-old Garrett Phillips.

A grand jury in February cleared Narrow and former Chief Assistant District Attorney David Haggard of any wrongdoing. Special prosecutor Gary Miles stood in for Rain.

“There was a special prosecutor assigned to Mr. Narrow’s … case, so there’s no conflict,” Massey said. “Judge Richey had assigned a special prosecutor to the case Mr. N was potentially a defendant. As a result of that, there’s no conflict and we don’t see a reason for a special prosecutor in all cases where Mr. Narrow is defense council.”

Narrow was able to put former Haggard on the witness stand Thursday. He said he called Haggard to show what he says is “the district attorney’s tendency to seek what we believe to be revenge against people she believes have grieved her. Mr. Haggard has publically stated she has a list of people she believes has grieved her and the intent to use a grand jury against those people,” Narrow claimed after the hearing.

Narrow also contends that Rain is not offering written plea deals for his cases in local court in a timely fashion.

“He’s being very specific in talking about written plea offers. It’s not unusual in local courts for plea offers to be given orally. He didn’t say anything about that,” Massey said. “Mr. Narrow is always free to contact the ADA handling the case and discuss it.”

“We have approximately 81 active clients in St. Lawrence County. Of those 81 clients, 39 are without written plea offers … which in my experience working with district attorney’s offices in our neighboring counties is a disproportionately high number,” Narrow said on the phone after the Thursday hearing.

Massey said he agrees with testimony Haggard gave where he said Rain never instructed her prosecutors to treat Narrow’s clients differently than those of other defenders.

“Ms. Rain has never instructed ADAs to treat Mr. Narrow’s clients differently than any other defense attorney,” Massey said.

“Did I ever request of you different treatment of Mr. Narrow’s clients?” Rain asked Haggard on the stand on Thursday.

“No,” he answered.

“Did I ever treat Mr. Narrow differently with any of his cases?” Rain asked Haggard.

“Any time that you appeared on cases where I was present before Mr. Narrow I didn’t see any difference,” Haggard said after a long pause to think between Rain’s question and his answer.

“I think that the testimony has shown the allegations Mr. Narrow has made have not been established. Not all of his allegations have been supported by the testimony of his witnesses. Just because he’s made the allegations doesn’t necessarily mean they’re true,” Massey said Friday.

Go here for more details on the Thursday hearing.