Plea deal made in murder case

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

A man accused of killing his former girlfriend's sister in December 1997 avoided a trial and possible death sentence by entering a plea agreement with prosecutors on Tuesday, the day his trial was to begin.

Kenneth Curtis, who is already serving a life prison sentence for a California conviction, entered an Alford plea to one count each of voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon and second-degree kidnapping in connection with the slaying of Marysol "Mimi" Peres. With an Alford plea a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict.

District Judge Donald Mosley will sentence Curtis on Oct. 19. The sentence is to run concurrently with the 25 years to life Curtis has been serving since his October 1998 conviction in connection with a 1996 armed robbery and hijacking in California.

Deputy Public Defender Jordan Savage said as part of the deal the prosecution has stipulated to a sentence of eight to 20 years in prison for the voluntary manslaughter charge and two to five years for the kidnapping charge. Both counts will run concurrently.

Savage said while it's "almost unheard of for a death penalty case" to be negotiated in the fashion Curtis' case was he felt the "deal made sense for all parties as the sentence he (Curtis) receives for this case will expire long before he is ever even considered for parole in California."

"My client gets to maintain his innocence in this case by entering an Alford plea and the prosecution gets closure on an old case," Savage said.

Savage said he felt there was a lack of evidence against Curtis, but Curtis decided the risk of placing the matter in the hands of a jury was too great.

Prosecutors said Curtis shot Peres in the head, wrapped her in a blue Martha Stewart bed sheet and put her body in a trash bin on Martin Luther King Boulevard on Dec. 19, 1997, to get back at Peres' sister, Leticia Morfin, whom he had been dating. Morfin had broken up with Curtis two days before the killing.

Deputy District Attorney Greg Knapp said the plea agreement was offered after it was determined too many question marks surrounded certain issues in the case. Knapp said if the case went to trial it "could have gone either way" because "a lot of angles for attack at trial and on the appeal" would have existed.