OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - James Everett Dutschke, accused of sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others, appears to have taken a risk in withdrawing his guilty plea.
Dutschke pleaded guilty in January to federal charges in connection with the letters; Separately, he also pleaded guilty to child molestation charges. In accepting the plea deal, prosecutors said they would recommend that Dutschke face less than the maximum punishment in both cases.
But moments before he was to be sentenced in the ricin case Tuesday, Dutschke told a judge he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and prove that he was innocent of charges that he had made ricin and then sent letters laced with the poison to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Mississippi judge Sadie Holland.
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock did not immediately rule on Dutschke’s request to withdraw his plea. But she warned him that he was jeopardizing the agreement with prosecutors. She repeatedly referred to his plea deal as “a contract.”
If he walks away from the deal, Dutschke could end up with more jail time. Prosecutors had been recommending a 20-year sentence on the state charges to run concurrently with a 25-year federal sentence. Without the deal, he could face a maximum of 45 years in prison on the state charges and life imprisonment on the federal charges.
State prosecutors, meanwhile, aren’t letting the hitch in federal court affect things on their end. Sentencing on the state charges is set for May 27.
“Our position is we’re just going to move forward,” said Paul Howell, the chief investigator with the Lee County district attorney’s office.
Dutschke also could face renewed allegations that he recruited an inmate while in the Lafayette County jail in a second attempt to frame entertainer Paul Kevin Curtis, the first suspect in the case. Federal prosecutors dropped that case as part of the January agreement.
There’s still a chance the deal will not unravel if Aycock refuses to allow Dutschke to pull back his plea.
Tucker Carrington, a professor at the University of Mississippi law school, said that just wanting to take back the original plea is not enough reason to allow withdrawal, but said the case’s high profile could persuade Aycock to approve it.
“It enters into the area of judicial discretion,” Carrington said. “There’s also something that militates toward letting the defendant have their day in court.”
Dutschke renewed allegations that Curtis had mailed the letters to Obama, Wicker and Holland when he addressed the judge Tuesday.
Curtis, a Corinth singer and celebrity impersonator, was briefly jailed before authorities dropped charges, and has filed a civil lawsuit against Dutschke. Christi McCoy, who represents Curtis, said she’d seek to restart that stalled case.
Curtis said Wednesday he had hoped Dutschke’s sentencing would bring part of the story to an end.
“It is hard,” Curtis said. “I live in uncertainty.”
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