Tacony basement captor seeks to withdraw guilty plea
The woman who pleaded guilty to enslaving and torturing disabled adults in a Tacony basement now wants to change her plea to not guilty, according to a handwritten motion filed with the court.
The woman who pleaded guilty to enslaving and torturing disabled adults in a Tacony basement now wants to change her plea to not guilty, according to a handwritten motion filed with the court.
Linda Weston agreed last month to accept a life term plus 80 years after admitting to all 196 federal counts filed against her, including charges of murder, kidnapping, sex trafficking, hate crimes, forced labor, and benefits fraud. The deal spared her a potential death sentence.
Now she has asked the court to change her plea and to hold a competency hearing to evaluate her mental health.
"I feel I was pushed by my attorneys to plead guilty, and I do not understand what occurred that day," she wrote in the one-page letter to U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe.
Weston sent the motion from the federal detention center in Philadelphia, where she is being held. At the end of the note, she wrote her name and added: "nmate help me with my litter. Thitk yoo."
The judge earlier set a formal sentencing hearing for Nov. 5.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Faithe Moore Taylor said a decision on Weston's requests rested with the court. The government intends to proceed as if the sentencing date is firm, she added.
Efforts to reach Weston's lawyers were unsuccessful on Monday. Earlier, they said their client was ready to admit what she had done almost from the moment she and four others were indicted in early 2013.
According to a plea memorandum, Weston and other members of what prosecutors dubbed the "Weston family" lured, confined, and controlled their mentally disabled targets, while seeking to make money from them in any way they could. Together the group stole more than $200,000 in Social Security benefits by pressuring their captives to sign documents designating Weston as their payee.
They forced others, including Weston's 17-year-old niece, into prostitution.
To keep the costs of care low, they locked their wards naked in basements, attics, cupboards, and closets, feeding them depressant-spiked beans and ramen noodles. When supplies ran low, they forced their victims to eat their own and other people's waste.
The captives were beaten with hammers, bats, sticks, and guns, prosecutors said.
The case shocked the city in 2011 when four captives were discovered chained in the basement of an apartment in Tacony. The case came to include Texas, Virginia, and Florida as Weston and her associates allegedly moved to avoid discovery.
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@JeffGammage
