Abramson testifies she didn't force Strohmeyer to take plea

Leslie Abramson strongly denied suggestions by Jeremy Strohmeyer's new lawyer that she had used emotional pressure to manipulate her former client. (Court TV)

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LAS VEGAS (Court TV) —Leslie Abramson is famed for unrelenting cross-examinations, but Tuesday the renowned criminal defense attorney proved she can be an equally imposing witness.

A testy and sometimes irate Abramson took the stand to counter accusations by former client Jeremy Strohmeyer that she lied and bullied him into pleading guilty to the 1997 murder of a 7-year-old girl in a casino bathroom. Strohmeyer, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole, is asking a Carson County court to throw out his plea deal. He wants the judge to grant him a trial because, Strohmeyer claims, Abramson put her reputation and attorney fees ahead of her client's wishes.

Abramson, who practices in California, was under no obligation to testify in Nevada. Nonetheless, she said she was lured back for Strohmeyer's hearing by Judge Joseph Bonaventure's request that she put her version of events on the record. Gesturing to Strohmeyer, his new attorneys and the prosecutor as she took the stand, she said icily, "I agreed to come to see all my old friends, and my client."

That client, 21-year-old Strohmeyer, whom she referred to at one point Tuesday as "our boy", alleges that Abramson misunderstood the Nevada capital case statute until just days before the trial. In Nevada, unlike California, a three judge panel decides sentencing in capital cases if the trial jury fails to reach a verdict. That panel reportedly recommends death nine out of ten times. Strohmeyer claims that Abramson did not know about the panel and was actually hoping to hang the jury as a way to avoid the death penalty.

When Abramson found out about the mistake, Strohmeyer maintains, she panicked and forced him into a plea deal. He says Abramson misled him about his chances at trial and on appeal and then resorted to emotional attacks to force him to take the deal. His attorneys also implied that plea discussions began just as Strohmeyer's parents told Abramson they were out of money for legal fees.

Under hostile questioning from Strohmeyer's new lawyers, Abramson denied all the allegations. She maintained that she and co-counsel Richard Wright had provided Strohmeyer with a strong defense given the difficult circumstances of the case. Those circumstances included the brutality of Sherrice Iverson's murder, Strohmeyer's multiple confessions, the slew of additional molestation charges Strohmeyer faced, surveillance videotape evidence, child pornography found on his home computer and the conservative political culture of the state. With those circumstances, Abramson said, life in prison without the possibility of parole was almost a certainty and the plea agreement avoided the possibility of the death penalty.

"We went through the potential sentences, told him what our concerns were," Abramson testified Tuesday. "And I told him I'm not going to tell him what to do, I wanted him to make his own decision. I was ready to go to trial. I have no problem going to trial, we'll do it. He's the one who focused on, if what you're telling me, if the jury hangs and it's these three judges, they're going to give me death, so I really have no choice."

Abramson strongly denied suggestions by Strohmeyer's new lawyer Robert Preuss that she had used emotional pressure to manipulate his client. "Isn't it a fact that at one point you said to Jeremy 'You are guilty you should take the plea, you deserve the punishment?'" Preuss asked.

"No," Abramson answered.

"Isn't it a fact that at one point during this discussion you told Jeremy that if he went to trial he would be putting his parents through something and he shouldn't put them through that?"

"No," she said

"Isn't it a fact that you told Jeremy during this discussion that by going to trial he would be putting Sherrice's parents through tremendous pain and he should feel guilty about doing that?"

"Absolutely not!" she replied.

Strohmeyer, seated at the defense table, watched Abramson intently and shook his head as she contradicted many of his allegations. He took the stand after Abramson and testified. Strohmeyer said they had a "strange relationship" that in his mind contributed to his accepting the plea deal.

"She treated me like a child basically," said Strohmeyer. "I learned pretty quick that to give input would raise her ire."

He said from the beginning, he was willing to risk the death penalty to get a sentence that included the possibility of parole, but that she dismissed his desires.

"I thought that life in prison without the possibility of parole is far worse than dying and she told me that that was immature and I didn't know what I was saying," he recalled.

In several tangles with Preuss, Abramson lived up to her pugnacious reputation. When he asked if she had, in effect, gotten kick backs from a lawyer she brought into the case to write motions, she glared at Preuss and answered, "No, counsel. Did you?"

At another point, Preuss asked Abramson a series of questions beginning "Are you aware..." After several questions, a visibly annoyed Abramson snapped, "Don't give me anymore snide 'Are you awares.'"

After one clash, she observed to Judge Bonaventura, "Lawyers make terrible witnesses."

Following her testimony, Abramson declined to be interviewed on camera, but told Court TV's Mary Jane Stevenson that she was not angry at her former client. Abramson said Strohmeyer was being manipulated by his new attorneys.

Prosecutor Stewart Bell plans to cross-exam Winifred Strohmeyer, Jeremy's mother, when testimony resumes Wednesday morning.

—Harriet Ryan