Plea deal reached in Strohmeyer case

Before it had even begun, the highly anticipated and heavily watched Jeremy Strohmeyer murder trial ended in a guilty plea today.

The deal guarantees the 19-year-old Long Beach teenager will escape the death penalty that was looming had he been convicted of first-degree murder in the May 25, 1997, rape and strangulation of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson.

Strohmeyer, dejection and resignation on his face and in his voice, pleaded guilty to all counts in the deal that will result in three sentences of life without the possibility of parole and one sentence of life with parole possible after 20 years. Formal sentencing is October 14.

Strohmeyer admitted to Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt that he was responsible for the attack on the Los Angeles second grader inside a Primm casino restroom, although his Los Angeles attorney, Leslie Abramson, said he still maintains little recollection of the sexual assault.

When he conceded to the judge that he had taken the girl into a restroom stall, a tear ran down the cheek of the girl's mother, Yolanda Manuel, who was sitting with friends in the crowded courtroom. She showed no other emotion inside the courtroom, but she cried as she was led away after the session by friends.

Strohmeyer's guilty plea was really not much of an issue since he gave three confessions to police and made similar admissions to friends and family. But Abramson had tried to portray him as a troubled teen who was psychologically incapable of forming the necessary intent to kill.

Theoretically that would take the case out of the realm of first-degree murder, but juries seldom buy such arguments.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said he was approached Friday by defense attorney Richard Wright about the possibility of a plea bargain and the opposing sides spent the weekend hammering out the deal.

Bell said he had talked with Manuel early today about the proposed plea bargain and "she was very pleased."

Bell said the deal prevents the inevitable appeals that would have resulted from a guilty verdict at a trial and the possibility of the case being overturned by an appeals court and a new trial ordered.

He added that death penalty verdicts are not always easy to achieve, although he said, "there is not a case with more egregious facts that this one."

For Bell, the bottom line was that "we can look the public in the eye and say (Strohmeyer) will never hurt another person again."

Abramson indicated that because of court decisions over evidence in the case, the best she believed could be achieved by the defense, was a conviction and a sentence of life in prison with no parole until the teenager had served 75 years.

She said Strohmeyer's decision to accept the plea bargain was "made for the benefit of his parents ... to make sure he lives."

"Life without is ghastly, and he doesn't know if he can make it" but he didn't want to burden his parents by knowing he was on death row and destined for execution by lethal injection.

Abramson said one of Strohmeyer's goals is to have the case serve "as a warning and example" to parents about what can happen to young people who are left to their own devices or who do not get the proper treatment for their problems.

She continued to portray Strohmeyer as a good person whose life took a wrong and deadly turn over the period of a few months.

The feisty Los Angeles lawyer snapped to the media that David Cash Jr., Strohmeyer's buddy at Primm, needs to be held accountable for his involvement.

"He was not a witness but a co-perpetrator," she said.

"I really don't know if justice was served," said the Rev. Jesse Scott, former head of the local chapter of the NAACP and a longtime civil rights activist. "I wanted it to go to trial so the jury and judge would have decided the matter."

Scott noted, however, that "it's always difficult" for a jury to hand down the death penalty.

Doug Millar, a courtroom observer who said he speaks nationally on child pornography and murders, said "this action will cover up the entire child porn matter."

"Justice was not served -- we should have seen the death sentence. He (Strohmeyer) won't live five weeks in prison," Millar said, adding that with the media focus on the case, it would have been a golden opportunity to "expose the child porn industry on the Internet as never before."

Najee Ali, a spokesperson for the girl's family, said "this is exactly what we wanted -- to make sure he wouldn't hurt any children again. He's a dead man walking when he gets to prison."

"People (prisoners) have sent me letters to say they are waiting for him," Ali said.

Ali and Manuel plan to return to Los Angeles later today and plan to continue work on national legislation making it a crime to witness a crime against a child and not report it.

Ali said that what bothered Manuel most was the way her daughter dies but that she has a strong faith in God and will overcome it.

He confirmed that Manuel had been involved in the plea bargain. Noting that Strohmeyer had stated in his confession that he killed "to experience death," Ali responded that the family originally wanted to oblige him but "any time you are locked up for life, that's just as good."

The plea bargain was formalized less than two hours before opening statements were scheduled to begin in the trial that was expected to last five or six weeks. Media from across the country were in Las Vegas and television satellite trucks cluttered the streets outside the courthouse.

The jury that was selected and sworn in Wednesday may have been a factor in the decision to plea bargain the case that had racial and socio-economic overtones.

Strohmeyer is white and from a well-to-do Long Beach family -- although adopted as an infant -- while Iverson was a black girl who had a modest upbringing in Los Angeles. Her parents live separately, and she was traveling with her father during the early morning hours when she died.

As one of six so-called "aggrevating circumstances" to legally justify the death penalty, prosecutors alleged the murder was racially motivated.

Sources inside the investigation indicated that is based on a statement Strohmeyer made to friends when talking about his involvement in Iverson's slaying. He was said to have downplayed the incident and quoted as saying, "That's just one less n_____r."

The 12 member jury has three blacks on it, although only one indicated a belief that race played a role in the assault and murder inside a women's restroom at the Primm Valley hotel-casino on the Nevada-California border, 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Others on the jury were a cross section of middle America. While most had some knowledge of the case and sympathized with the young victim, a few indicated it might not be the type of case that warranted the death penalty. They indicated that might need to be reserved for more heinous killers and mass murderers.

A couple of jurors voiced their belief that life in prison without the possibility of parole was a harsher sentence than death.

Abramson said she was "very pleased" with the jury and "frustrated" the case wasn't going to a trial.

The case has dragged on for more than 15 months and seemed to keep getting better for the prosecution as time passed. Strohmeyer's confessions to police were declared to be legal, although Abramson contended they were coerced from a young man who was denied access to an attorney his family hired.

DNA evidence from a cigarette butt found inside the restoom was linked to Strohmeyer. It proved conclusively he was in the restroom and supported videotape evidence from security cameras showing a body-pierced man following the victim inside.

The Nevada Supreme Court added to the evidentiary avalanche by declaring legal the contents of Strohmeyer's personal computer, although the affidavit supporting the search warrant used to seize it never mentioned the computer.

Once-deleted information was retrieved by police and FBI experts from computer's hard drive. Hundreds of images of child pornography were recovered, along with Internet chat room conversations and e-mail messages.

Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen said one chat room conversation transmitted under Strohmeyer's Internet nickname just 30 hours before Iverson's death indicated he couldn't stop fantisizing about sex with 5- and 6-year-olds.

Cash became a prosecution witness and recalled the events surrounding the girl's death before the Clark County Grand Jury that indicted Strohmeyer on murder, sexual assault and kidnapping charges.

The glut of prosecution evidence has had several criminal defense attorneys and even a few prosecutors wondering why a plea bargain had not resulted early in the case.

Bell, who picked this as one of a handful of murder case he personally prosecuted, said earlier this month that "There have been no negotiations."

In such strong cases, it is rare that the prosecution would initiate plea bargain talks.

It usually is the defense making the overtures in an effort to minimize the penalties and -- in capital murder cases -- to prevent the imposition of a death sentence.

Staff writers Ed Koch and Art Nadler contributed to this report.

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