Placerville, California - Phillip Garrido, the convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping and holding Jaycee Dugard captive for 18 years, pleaded not guilty on Thursday as his lawyer challenged the composition of the grand jury that indicted him and his wife last fall.
Mr. Garrido had been widely expected to plead guilty to all counts after a lawyer for Mr. Garrido's wife, Nancy, indicated that a plea deal had been reached.
But on Thursday, Mr. Garrido instead entered a plea of not guilty, and his lawyer, Susan Gellman, scolded Ms. Garrido's lawyer, Stephen Tapson, for speaking out.
"I would say that he should speak for his client," said Ms. Gellman to a throng of reporters outside the El Dorado County courthouse, adding that "there was no offer on the table."
Last month, Mr. Tapson reported - accurately, apparently - that the Garridos had confessed to their crimes, which included raping and kidnapping Ms. Dugard, then 11 years old, off a South Lake Tahoe street in 1991. The Garridos then held Ms. Dugard captive for 18 years, during which time Mr. Garrido fathered two children by her, the authorities say.
She and her two daughters were rescued in August 2009 from the Garridos' house in Antioch, Calif., a Bay Area suburb, behind which law enforcement officials discovered a hidden encampment where it is believed Ms. Dugard and her children were sometimes held.
The judge, Douglas C. Phimister, accepted the not-guilty pleas on Thursday from Mr. and Ms. Garrido and set a trial date for August.
Vern Pierson, the El Dorado district attorney, called the defense motion over the grand jury composition commonplace and said he did not expect it to cause a serious challenge to the prosecution or its case.
For his part, Mr. Tapson - who has made a habit of speaking to the news media - seemed contrite for leading reporters to believe that the long-running case might come to a partial conclusion on Thursday. "Sorry, guys," he said after court dismissed, "for the trip."
