Judge refuses to grant new trial to convicted drug dealer
Claiming he tried to manipulate the criminal justice system, a Fayette County judge has refused to grant drug dealer Anthony Eugene Williams a new trial. Williams, 43, of 112 Searight Ave., Uniontown, pleaded no contest to two counts each of possession and possession with intent to deliver drugs in April 2002. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison under mandatory sentencing guidelines.
Williams filed a post-conviction motion earlier this year asking Judge Ralph C. Warman to grant him a new trial. He claimed his defense attorney was ineffective for a number of reasons.
Warman, in a 37-page opinion, indicates that Williams repeatedly refused to cooperate with representatives from the county’s public defender’s office, and then tried to repeatedly stop his case from going to court.
Police arrested Williams after he tried to sell a total of 46.1 grams of cocaine to undercover informants on two occasions in June 2001. His preliminary hearing was delayed for two and a half months while Williams sought a lawyer. The hearing finally took place near the end of September 2001, after Williams appeared a third time without representation.
He appeared for several court dates without a lawyer, according to Warman’s opinion, and started one trial in February 2002 with a stand-by lawyer from the public defender’s office.
Midway through that trial, Williams pleaded guilty to the charges, admitting to the allegations. He withdrew that plea, and in the midst of a second trial in April 2002, he opted to plead no contest to the allegations. A no-contest plea means Williams did not contest the charges against him.
He was sentenced immediately to two terms of five to 10 years in prison to be served consecutively. When the judge meted out that sentence, Williams asked to withdraw his plea, but the judge refused.
In post-conviction documents, Williams claimed his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Susan Ritz Harper, coerced him into taking that plea.
Warman, however, said he felt that was a distortion on facts.
“We find that defendant’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea a second time during his second jury trial is nothing more than an attempt to improperly manipulate the system and to further delay the disposition of the case,” wrote Warman.