(ABC 6 News) – The man accused of the murder of Kim Robinson pleaded not guilty Friday, Dec. 1.

Mustafa Rashad Bush, 40, was charged with 2nd-degree murder with and without intent, and 1st-degree drug possession related to the death of 41-year-old Kimberly Robinson of Rochester at the beginning of this year.

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Dec. 1 hearing

Bush’s trial will be scheduled in the summer of 2024, Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem said in a Zoom hearing, and will take a week or more, as the state plans to call about 40 witnesses to testify.

Additionally, Bush has been held in Oak Park Heights, a maximum-security DOC facility, which he claimed in letters to Bayley makes it difficult to meet with his counsel, according to Friday’s hearing.

Defense attorney Graham Henry said while Bush understands that he will not be released on bail, as he has failed to post bail and has a parole revocation pending, he has made attempts to be moved to another, less restrictive facility.

Ostrem requested that the court defer to the Olmsted County attorney and Department of Corrections’ right to decide where a suspect is held.

Bayley and Henry briefly discussed the possibility of Bush filling out an official transfer request.

Motion to suppress evidence denied

In August, Bush’s defense filed a motion to suppress evidence taken from various cell phones from being used in court.

Bush’s criminal complaint, filed in early January of this year, references multiple digital files used to accuse Bush of Robinson’s murder, including call logs, phone location tracking that allegedly placed Bush and Robinson in the same locations, surveillance footage from businesses in Rochester, and social media posts.

The motion to suppress evidence, according to court documents, sought to remove information from physical searches of two phones discovered during the investigation, as well as carrier data.

The motion was denied Nov. 20.

The evidence in question did not include a physical search of Kim Robinson’s phone, as that device was never located by law enforcement, Capt. Tim Parkin with the OCSO confirmed Friday, Dec. 1.

Court documents instead indicate that all of the cell phones discovered in December 2022 belonged to Bush.