Strohmeyer claims he blacked out during attack on 7-year-old

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 8:42 a.m.

He told police he did it. He told his friends and even a judge he did it. But now Jeremy Strohmeyer says he doesn't remember raping and strangling a 7-year-old girl in a casino restroom.

Strohmeyer, now 21, claims he blacked out and doesn't know what happened in May 1997 when Sherrice Iverson's body was found propped up on a toilet seat.

"I want to know the truth," Strohmeyer testified Tuesday at a hearing to determine if he will be allowed to recant his guilty pleas and get a new trial. "I want justice."

That prompted Chief Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot to shout: "You want the death penalty, is that what you want?"

He claims his attorney, Leslie Abramson, the Los Angeles attorney best known for defending Lyle and Erik Menendez, pressured him into taking a plea bargain by telling him he would be convicted and sentenced to death if the case went to trial.

On the day his trial was to begin in September 1998, Strohmeyer confessed to raping and killing Sherrice in a restroom attack at the Primadonna hotel-casino in Primm, 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas. He was sentenced to four life terms with no chance or parole.

The hearing was expected to wrap up Wednesday afternoon. District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure indicated he needed a couple of hours before making his decision but did not indicate when that would be.

Strohmeyer claimed Abramson withheld certain evidence from him, including a fingerprint report that found that no prints of Sherrice or Strohmeyer were found in the restroom.

Strohmeyer admitted he did know that a cigarette butt containing his DNA was found in the restroom along with the girl's body, indicating they were both in the restroom.

He testified that Abramson told him he was guilty and that he deserved his sentence.

"She made me feel pretty horrible," he said.

Abramson testified Tuesday that she never told her client that. She said she outlined Strohmeyer's options and told him that even if he escaped the murder charge, he faced 75 years to life on the sexual assault charges.

Strohmeyer's mother, Winifred Strohmeyer, testified that Abramson suggested the plea shortly after she told the attorney that she and her husband were out of money. They had already paid Abramson a $250,000 retainer, plus $80,000 to $90,000 for help from other attorneys.

Asked by Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell if she recommended the guilty pleas because money for her fee was running out, Abramson bristled:

"Take the money and run? That would be immoral. I certainly wouldn't do that to Jeremy."

Strohmeyer's new attorneys Camille Abate and Robert Preuss of New York City seemed unprepared on certain issues. At one time, Abate told the judge that a tissue Strohmeyer admitted in his confession that he used in the restroom was never found. But, Bell said the tissue was found and admitted into evidence.

Testimony from LeRoy Iverson, Sherrice's father, backfired on the defense when he testified by telephone from California that he doesn't know if he saw anyone coming out of the women's restroom in Primm. Defense attorneys claimed that Iverson told them he saw David Cash, Strohmeyer's buddy, exiting the restroom, suggesting that Cash may have killed Sherrice.

But Iverson, who had diabetes and recently suffered a heart attack, was hostile. At one point, he called Abate a "Yankee trying to get a murderer out of prison."

He suggested Abate pay him $9,000 in restitution for his daughter's death. Iverson was not under oath when he testified.

When Strohmeyer was on the stand, prosecutors played an audio tape of his detailed confession to police when he was arrested.

But Strohmeyer said the confession was information he was fed "by my supposed best friend (Cash)."