Strohmeyer case may include chat room visits

Bill Gang

Friday, Sept. 4, 1998 | 11:29 a.m.

Thirty hours before 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson was raped and murdered at a Primm casino, Jeremy Strohmeyer had commented in an Internet chat room conversation that "I fantasize about sex with 5- and 6-year-olds all the time," a prosecutor has alleged.

With the jury selected for the Jeremy Strohmeyer murder trial, attorneys are turning their attention to the evidence the jurors will see -- including the chat room conversations that prosecutors say were authored by the 19-year-old defendant.

Prosecutors want to use the chat room information and other statements, plus hundreds of images of child pornography, recovered from Strohmeyer's personal computer to show he premeditated the sexual assault and eventual murder of the Los Angeles girl.

Iverson died of strangulation in a women's restroom in the Primm Valley hotel- casino on May 25, 1997. Strohmeyer was arrested three days later as he was fleeing his parents' Long Beach home and gave three confessions to police admitting his culpability.

Strohmeyer's lawyer, Leslie Abramson, argued that prosecutors never could prove the chat room comments were made by the defendant.

The defense said earlier in the case that Strohmeyer's friends -- including David Cash Jr., who accompanied him to the casino -- also had used the computer.

Sources close to the case have indicated, however, that the comments recovered from the computer's hard drive were transmitted under Strohmeyer's code name, which was discovered during the weeks that law enforcement computer experts explored the computer data.

Defense attorneys have challenged the legality and use of the deleted, but not destroyed, computer evidence although Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt reaffirmed Thursday that he will let it be used if a proper connection can be made to Strohmeyer.

But Leavitt reiterated that it can only come into the trial if the defense makes an issue of Strohmeyer's state of mind at the time of the slaying. That is anticipated because Abramson stated at earlier hearings that psychological examinations have indicated the teenager could not have formed the legally necessary intent to kill.

Prosecutors have agreed to instruct their witnesses that no mention can be made of the computer in the state's initial presentation of its case.

Abramson argued to the judge that even if Strohmeyer's state of mind is raised as a defense, the computer evidence should not be allowed unless it can be shown that its value as evidence outweighs the prejudicial shock value.

She added that the child pornography should be excluded from the case because some experts have concluded that possessing or looking at child pornography doesn't mean a person will act illegally.

The Los Angeles lawyer said she wants to present the "science in the field" to the court and asked Leavitt to authorize $3,000 in public funds for an Arizona expert to come to the trial and testify.

She noted that prosecutors have an FBI expert who she expects to testify there is a connection.

Leavitt granted the funds, which raised the cap on investigative and expert fees for Strohmeyer's defense to $50,000.

Although Strohmeyer's parents have paid the legal fees for Abramson and Las Vegas defense attorney Richard Wright, plus perhaps as much as $400,000 in earlier investigative costs, Abramson has said the family is broke.

Because Strohmeyer, who was 18 at the time of the incident, has always been indigent, he could have requested public funds at any point in the case. Any attempts to secure legal fees, however, likely would have resulted in Abramson and Wright being excused from the case and attorneys from the Clark County public defender's office appointed.