Inmate wants to withdraw plea
Petersen says he was forced into guilty plea in death of sonBy DAVE CALDWELL Staff Writer dcaldwell@minotdailynews.com
A Minot man who pleaded guilty to felony charges in the 2004 death of his infant son appeared in court Friday in an effort to withdraw those pleas.
Lloyd Guillermo Petersen II, also known as "Junior," was sent to prison in 2005 to serve consecutive five-year terms for negligent homicide and child abuse. Petersen had originally been charged with murder following the death of 6-month-old Lloyd Petersen IV in a northwest Minot apartment. Court records and testimony state that the baby's mother found the child unresponsive around 15 minutes after Petersen put the boy in his bed. Petersen is alleged to have exhibited abusive behavior toward the child on several occasions, including a time about three days before the infant's death in which Petersen tied one of the baby's arms behind its back to both its ankles. On the night the baby died, the child's mother has stated she found a piece of clothing tied around his face.
Petersen was represented by Minot attorney Richard Thomas, who negotiated a plea agreement where a Class AA felony murder charge was reduced to negligent homicide, a Class C felony. Two other charges were dismissed as part of the agreement.
In 2006, however, Petersen wrote an affidavit from prison stating that he was forced to enter into the plea agreement due to a variety of reasons including threats from the baby's mother, ineffectiveness of legal representation and a language barrier preventing him from fully understanding what was going on at the time of the plea agreement. Petersen came to North Dakota from the Virgin Islands in 2004, where Virgin Islands Creole is a common dialect.
Grand Forks attorney DeWayne Johnston took over Petersen's case and filed a motion to withdraw the guilty pleas in late March 2009, resulting in Friday's hearing in Northwest District Court in Minot before Judge Douglas Mattson, who was also the original judge in the case.
Petersen took the stand and told the court that due to his limited ability to speak and understand English, statements that he made to Thomas and to investigators following the baby's death were not interpreted correctly.
"Most statements, the author had a whole different understanding of what I said," Petersen said.
Petersen said that throughout the time period he had been charged, the mother repeatedly threatened to harm his other children and his family all the while sneaking in to see him in jail in violation of a court order prohibiting contact between them.
"I was expressing different scenarios she would talk about, I would report it to (Thomas) in the exact words," Petersen said. "He would say leave her alone, but I tried to tell him. He just kept saying, 'It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.'"
Petersen also said the mother often cut her wrists and threatened to harm the baby to get his attention. After he was arrested, Petersen said, she told him that he had to take the blame in order for her to avoid police scrutiny in the case.
"She would threaten to hurt the ones I care about the most if I decided not to cooperate," he said.
Petersen said that he was not willing to admit guilt in the case, but Thomas told him that accepting the plea agreement would be "basically like you're not guilty at all."
"If it had anything to do with harming my kid, I don't want anything to do with it," Petersen said.
He also stated that Thomas led him to believe he would be out of jail in "18 months or two years," and that Mattson rarely gave consecutive sentences for first-time offenders.
Another contention Petersen maintains is that Thomas told him if he didn't go along with the case, that the child's mother would end up in the investigation's crosshairs.
"He kept saying I need to make my choices carefully it's me or her," Petersen said, adding that he felt he would be better able to handle being in jail
Finally, Petersen contended that in reality, he had left the apartment the night the baby died hours before he was discovered in the crib around 11 p.m., not 15 or 20 minutes as was consistent with all other accounts.
Deputy Ward County State's Attorney Tim Wilhelm wasted no time hammering the timeframe contention when he took over on cross-examination.
"Do you remember telling Detective (Bob) Barnard on three occasions you were gone about 15 minutes?" Wilhelm asked.
"Yes," Petersen replied.
"Were you lying then or are you lying now?" Wilhelm asked, to which Petersen offered no answer.
"You told Det. Barnard you were at the house 15 minutes before?" Wilhelm asked.
"Yes," Peterson answered.
"Were you lying?"
"No."
"So you must be lying when you say (you were gone from) 7:30 or 8:30 until 11?" Wilhelm asked.
"No," Petersen said.
Wilhelm also attempted to impeach Petersen's testimony by getting him to deny he had threatened suicide while in prison, then showing Petersen a picture with his own handwriting on the back stating, "I don't want to be alive," and "I want to die."
Petersen seemed amused by the tone of the writing on the picture.
"Boy, that's love," he chuckled. "That's tragic."
The baby's mother testified that she had never cut herself and never threatened Petersen's other children in the Virgin Islands, whom she called "beautiful." In fact, she said, "I didn't even know he had any other kids except my son and his other son that died."
Johnston attacked Thomas at length when Thomas took the stand, claiming Thomas was entirely focused on a plea deal instead of developing trial strategy or investigating the mother.
Thomas flatly denied the allegations, saying that Petersen understood the plea agreement he was entering into. He also testified he felt a murder trial very possibly could have resulted in Petersen's conviction.
"The state alleged that he suffocated the child and he admitted that to me," Thomas said. "I believed the evidence was sufficient to convict him."
Mattson will rule on the case at a later date.
