Will Shelley Lubben Take a Powder to Save Face? Testimony Pushed 60 Days

Will a two-month reprieve be enough time for the adulterous "rebel prophet" to cash out of the Springville property she obtained in her divorce settlement and become "unavailable"to testify?

December 1, 2016, Porterville, Calif. -- In Tulare County Superior Court, the deputy district attorney tasked with prosecuting Shelley Lubben's husband based on her strange, and shall we say fluid version of events, acknowledged that his office had failed to adequately prepare for today's hearing.

DDA Vicente Reyes has yet to fulfill the discovery requests made by Garrett Lubben's attorney, and failed to subpoena his witnesses (principal among them, Shelley Lubben and the sheriff to which she first presented her charges) in time for a scheduled December 5 hearing. The judge scheduled a resetting for today's hearing on Feb. 2, 2017, with Feb. 6 slated for witness testimony.

Shelley, having been spurned by her now ex-husband after admitting to her affair with a ranch worker, is currently trying to retract her exculpatory statement about him, made under penalty of perjury, claiming it was given under duress.

Her retraction, however, was apparently not made under penalty of perjury.

This further -- some would say, unconscionable -- delay in the court proceedings against her ex, frankly, has "Shelley Lubben" written all over it. It positively stinks of her.

With the prospect of character witnesses lined up to annihilate her last shred of credibility, the pressure upon Lubben is enormous. Famously enthralled with her own celebrity for the sake of the attention and validation from the flock that it provides, Lubben is undoubtedly freaking out right about now.

Even though, with genuine contempt, she herself views her support base as gullible rubes, the prospect of ending up with irrefutable egg on her face is not something a glib narcissist can abide.

She has written to Garrett of suicidal thoughts, and sent strange, even sentimental farewell messages to her family, so it's easy to divine that the idea of escape already commands substantial weight in her mind. And with each drop in asking price for her "Lubben Ranch", the case can be more easily made that Lubben is hoping to put off and ultimately avoid her inevitable humiliation in the halls of justice.

Lubben knocked $50k off her asking price on Nov. 20, 2016

Setting up house in another county or state, would permit her to once again play victim -- here one can easily imagine her raspy complaints about being stalked by porn industry "hit squads" -- as well as "prophet in the wilderness". But again, it all hinges upon her never being rebuked, humiliated and perhaps even prosecuted in a court of law.

A close watch is warranted on Shelley's moves over the coming weeks.

UPDATE: I am informed that "taking a powder" is a colloquialism with which some are not familiar. An enlightening discussion about the phrase and its likely origins may be found here.