Strohmeyer evidentiary hearing nears conclusion

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

When Jeremy Strohmeyer took a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty for sexually assaulting and killing 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson, he avoided a potentially tenacious grilling from prosecutors.

On Tuesday when he took the stand and asked District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to set aside that plea and grant him the trial he passed up 16 months ago, he opened himself up to such scrutiny.

Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot went at 21-year-old Strohmeyer with claws bared -- trying to prove that not only does Strohmeyer not deserve a new trial, but also to erase any doubts that Strohmeyer was indeed the killer.

On cross-examination, Koot played a graphic hourlong audio confession that Strohmeyer gave Metro Police Detective Phil Ramos on May 29, 1997, in a Long Beach, Calif., jail following Strohmeyer's arrest for the Iverson slaying four days earlier at a casino in Primm.

After describing calmly and in detail the sex act and how the girl was having trouble breathing from an attempted strangulation, Strohmeyer in the tape recorded confession said:

"I didn't want to leave her that way, so I tried to break her neck so she would die quickly."

Later Strohmeyer explained the damaging tape confession -- if he gets his new trial a jury also will hear it -- by saying he does not remember what happened because he blacked out.

He said he was "fed a lot of information" from police, news media broadcasts of the killing and other sources that inspired the confession.

Then, raising his voice, he lashed back at Koot and District Attorney Stewart Bell.

"I want the truth -- I want justice," Strohmeyer said. "I want to remember what happened. ... You are seeking a conviction, you are not seeking justice."

This morning, Strohmeyer's mother, Winifred, also underwent an intense cross-examination - this one conducted by Bell.

Bell attempted to portray Winifred Strohmeyer as an adoptive mother who loves her son so much she would lie to protect him. In an attempt to undermine her credibility, Bell admitted into evidence a lawsuit the Strohmeyers filed against Los Angeles County last week.

The lawsuit alleges the Strohmeyers were misled about the backgrounds of Jeremy Strohmeyers' birth parents in an effort to get him adopted. The lawsuit states that Jeremy Strohmeyer "murdered a child" and his birth mother's history of schizophrenia played a part in that murder.

Winifred Strohmeyer testified she did not see the lawsuit prior to it being filed and that part of the lawsuit is incorrect.

Bell had said in his opening remarks that the defense will have difficulty proving the elements needed for a new trial, especially the claim that Strohmeyer's former attorneys, high-profile Los Angeles lawyer Leslie Abramson and noted Las Vegas attorney Richard Wright, were incompetent.

"I went hammer and tong with them for months," Bell said. "Only when they exhausted all remedies did they determine that they had no chance to win the case and cut their losses."

Strohmeyer pleaded guilty to killing Iverson in September 1998. He is serving four consecutive life sentences for murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. In November Strohmeyer filed motions for a new trial, contending his former attorneys did not adequately inform him of his legal options.

He also claims Abramson bullied him into accepting the plea bargain.

"Leslie told me I was guilty and this is what I deserved," Strohmeyer said. "She said I had no appealable issues -- it was a hopeless case. The best scenario was that I would spend the rest of my life in prison -- that I would die in prison."

Bell also questioned Strohmeyer's mother about the legal representation provided by Abramson and Wright. She said she had always understood that her son would go to trial and denied Wright's assertion that he told them from the beginning he always tried to negotiate plea agreements.

Winifred Strohmeyer testified Tuesday that she was told the trial would cost about $150,000 above what already had been paid.

"I told her we were out of money," Mrs. Strohmeyer testified. The plea bargain was worked out a short time later.

Abramson testified that she did not talk Strohmeyer into taking the plea bargain for her financial reasons, which she said would have been unethical and immoral.