photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Kyle Elder, left, appears Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Douglas County District Court with attorney Hatem Chahine.

A Douglas County defense attorney is asking a judge to keep from public view a document detailing the arrest of an accused sex offender, asserting that “the public will be just fine if the affidavit is sealed.”

The attorney, Hatem Chahine, represents Kyle Elder, a 35-year-old man from New York who is facing 11 felony counts of soliciting and sexually exploiting a Douglas County child, as the Journal-World reported.

The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office has likewise asked Judge Amy Hanley to seal the affidavit, the release of which was requested by the Journal-World, but Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal has also supplied a redacted version of the document for Hanley to consider releasing. Chahine, however, has asked that the document be entirely hidden from public view.

An arrest affidavit is a sworn document by a law enforcement official that details the evidence and circumstances that led police to believe there was probable cause to arrest a person. In Kansas, the affidavits are public records, but there is a process for requesting them and a judge may order them sealed or redacted for a variety of statutory reasons, most having to do with protecting personal information, law enforcement interests and physical safety of people involved in the case.

The statute does not list fairness to a criminal defendant as a reason to seal an affidavit.

The DA’s Office said that release of the information in the arrest affidavit would “jeopardize the physical, mental or emotional safety or well-being of a victim, witness, confidential source or undercover agent, or cause the destruction of evidence” and would reveal identifying information about the victim such as name, address and phone number.

The Journal-World does not name alleged victims of sex crimes nor release identifying details about them.

Chahine, on the other hand, said that release of the document would jeopardize the accused. In his motion to seal, he said that disclosing the affidavit “only exposes the public to one side of the story,” which is the “unchecked and unbalanced” side of law enforcement. He likened release of the affidavit to opening a “Pandora’s Box.”

He also asserted that his client, specifically his right to a fair trial, would be “inexorably harmed” if law enforcement’s “interpretation of evidence” in the affidavit were made public at this stage of the legal proceedings.

Elder has yet to undergo a preliminary hearing, at which Hanley would decide if there was sufficient evidence to order him to stand trial. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for April 24, but Chahine asked for and was granted a continuance. He told Hanley at that time that the state had declined a plea offer from his client and that federal authorities were likely going to file charges, a process that could take months, if not years. Hanley rescheduled a preliminary hearing for Elder on May 29, in the event that he doesn’t waive his right to a preliminary hearing, as the parties had contemplated, before then.

In his motion Chahine cites a state statute that recognizes that “the public has a paramount interest in all that occurs in a case,” but he argues that his client’s right to a fair trial by impartial jurors outweighs that interest.

According to reporting from the Niagara Gazette in New York, Elder was taken into custody last summer by officers from the Lawrence Police Department, assisted by New York law enforcement, who forced their way into a home in Falls, New York, and arrested Elder.

The Gazette reports that Elder was convicted in 2015 in New York of one count of use of a child under 17 years old in a sexual performance and one count of second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is currently serving 10 years of post-release supervision.

According to the New York registry of sexual offenders, Elder is a violent sexual offender and the victim in the second New York case was a 5-year-old girl.

Elder’s bond has been set at $250,000 cash or surety. Hanley is expected to rule on the motion to seal the affidavit in coming weeks. Elder’s next court date is May 7 for a status conference.