Strohmeyer seeks new trial, blames attorney

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999 | 11:21 a.m.

When Jeremy Strohmeyer pleaded guilty to raping and murdering a 7-year-old girl in a Primm casino restroom, it seemed to put an end to an event that had attracted nationwide attention and evoked strong emotion.

That was on Sept. 8, 1997, and Strohmeyer, now 21, has been limited to the confines of the state prison at Ely -- with nothing in his future except about 50 more years of the same.

He wants that to change.

Strohmeyer now claims he was "bullied" into pleading guilty -- with the requirement that he spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance for parole -- by his prominent Los Angeles attorney, Leslie Abramson.

He filed a petition in District Court earlier this month asking that a judge set aside his guilty plea and let him take his chances with a jury.

That is an avenue he said he would have pursued more than a year ago were it not for the "scare tactics, lies and appeals to guilt" used by Abramson to coerce him into taking a plea bargain he never wanted.

Strohmeyer claims his confession was involuntary and based on "erroneous advice" from Abramson. A hearing on the matter is set for Jan. 10.

Abramson could not be reached for comment this morning.

The petition notes that Strohmeyer "was adamant and Ms. Abramson was fully aware that he did not want to plead guilty and was willing to risk the death penalty rather than do so."

It was just after a jury was selected that the plea deal ended the proceeding that attracted media from around the country and was going to be broadcast live on Court TV.

Strohmeyer alleges Abramson indicated he he had few appeal issues should he be convicted at a trial, that the lightest sentence would put him in prison for life and that "the judge was a bad judge who would not give (Strohmeyer) a fair trial and that the jury was a terrible jury."

Abramson's push for a guilty plea, the petition alleges, became a necessity because she didn't have a command of Nevada law and "trial strategy was based on that ignorance of the law."

She is said to have told Strohmeyer that last-minute information she learned about the penalty phase made it "too risky" to leave decisions to a jury.

Abramson allegedly told Strohmeyer that if there was a hung jury on the sentence, the case would go to a three-judge panel that "always" handed down the death penalty. Strohmeyer's petition say that is not true.

Statistics show such panels hand down death sentences in about 90 percent of cases.

Strohmeyer was told by Abramson, according to the legal papers, that even the lightest sentence from a jury would keep the defendant in prison for 75 years before eligibility for parole because the sentencing judge was "required" to run the terms consecutively.

That also isn't true under Nevada law, but Abramson used the disinformation to "forcefully argued that ... there was really no point in not taking the life without parole offer," the petition contends.

"In attempting to convince Strohmeyer to take the plea, Abramson resorted to blatantly emotional attacks ... telling him he was guilty, that he deserved to be punished and that he deserved to spend the rest of his life in jail," the petition continued.

A conviction of Strohmeyer had appeared likely before the plea bargain since he had given three confessions to police and made similar admissions to friends and family -- some of them including statements that he had wanted to experience death.

There also were security videos from the Primm casino showing Strohmeyer playing with Sherrice Iverson, during the early morning hours while her father gambled, and then following her into a restroom where the murder occurred.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said that during Strohmeyer's guilty plea, then-District Judge Myron Leavitt spent about 45 minutes making sure the defendant understood the agreement.

Bell said he understands that after a year Strohmeyer may be unhappy with his fate, but "prison is supposed to be punishment."

"Severe crime deserves severe punishment," he said. "This was a severe crime."

The court petition states that "Abramson told Strohmeyer that he was certain to be convicted and to be executed and said he had to think of his parents," adding that "for the sake of Sherrice's parents he should do the right thing and take the plea."

To ensure the consent of Strohmeyer's parents for the plea bargain, Abramson is alleged to have told them how the death penalty would be carried out with their son "strapped to a gurney and dying like an animal when they injected him with the poison."

Bell indicated Monday that even if Strohmeyer avoided the death penalty at a trial or even a conviction on murder charges, there still would be a likelihood he would be convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor.

Both of those charges, Bell noted, carry the possibility of life prison terms without the possibility of parole.

The court motion filed through Las Vegas attorney Carmine Colucci alleges money also may have played a role in Abramson's actions promoting a plea bargain.

The petition contends that after Abramson took a flat fee of $250,000 -- whether the case was resolved at a trial or through a plea bargain -- and she concluded it was financially more advantageous to push her client into a resolution rather than spend several weeks in a trial.

Court documents indicate that "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in additional legal fees to other lawyers were paid by Strohmeyer's parents in the futile attempt to win his freedom and the financial well finally ran dry.

Some of those fees were paid to Strohmeyer's Las Vegas attorney Richard Wright, who the court petition claims had demanded payment of owed funds just the day before the plea bargain was proposed to the defendant.

Wright declined comment late Monday, stating that he has not seen the motion and it would be improper to talk about his relationship or communications with a client.