Anglesey motion denied

Jacob Anglesey is stuck with his no contest plea to aggravated homicide.

Anglesey’s plea, initially entered through a plea agreement with the Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office, dismisses the original charge of first-degree murder in the 2009 death of two-year-old Konnor Allen.

Anglesey’s attorneys attempted to convince Third District Court Judge Richard Lavery to allow Anglesey to change his plea last week, citing a desire to change their defense strategy as a result of recently uncovered comments made by Allen’s mother during a police interview. The interview was inadvertently excluded from a complete case file provided by the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation due to a software glitch involving report approvals made by supervisors.

When the report was released to both sides, Anglesey’s attorneys claimed comments made from the child’s mother, admitting she wanted to kill Anglesey after Allen’s death, as well as a previous battery charge she plead no contest to changed their strategy.

All of that amounted to nothing as Lavery issued a decision Friday afternoon rejecting the motion to change Anglesey’s plea. According to the denial by Lavery, he agrees with the county attorney’s office’s claims that it would suffer prejudice due to the fact that it is an older case and the victims need closure, as well as the fact the time it would take to restart a trial would also prejudice the state. Lavery also writes that Anglesey hasn’t said anything more than “his bare assertion to support his assertion of innocence.”

His defense argued that they pursued their accident theory because they knew nothing about Allen’s mother.

“As the State points out, though it committed technical violations of the discovery rules, its failure to do so was insubstantial because the defendant hasn’t shown that the new theory of defense is not speculative or is supported by a scintilla of evidence,” Lavery writes.

Lavery continues to write that even if looked in the most favorable light, claims made by Allen’s mother after the death would “at most be limited impeachment of a minor witness whose testimony is corroborated by the defendant’s statements.”

Lavery wrote that factor weighed strongly against allowing Anglesey to withdraw his plea.

 

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