Mistrial prompted by Kingsport murder defendant's alleged attempt to smuggle drugs into jail through his attorney
Allegations that a Kingsport double-murder defendant conspired to have marijuana smuggled into the Sullivan County jail through his lawyer have prompted a mistrial.
Leslie Allen Ware Jr., 32, will get a new trial with a different attorney before another jury after his court-appointed attorney, Steve Finney, accused Ware of using him to commit a crime. Finney outlined his allegations in a verbal motion to withdraw presented to Sullivan County Circuit Judge Jerry Beck on Friday morning. Ware appeared shocked and cursed audibly as Finney addressed the court.
Finney said his wife had purchased clothes for Ware that he had given to the court bailiffs to give to Ware before each day of the trial and its hearings. Ware was not permitted to keep the clothes in the jail.
About two weeks ago, Finney said he was told clothes would be coming from Ware’s mother. He said he received “T-shirts and a sweater,” and that Ware had worn some of those items in court.
Next, Finney said he was “informed” that “shoes and a shirt” for Ware were coming “from his family.” A pair of shoes were subsequently delivered to his office from the office of Don Spurrell. Spurrell withdrew from the trial last week after the state ended its bid for the death penalty for Ware to resolve issues related to belated discovery materials.
Finney said the return address was given as that of, “Joan Childs, a divorce attorney in Johnson City,” and he didn’t “check into that” until after he opened the box Friday morning. He said he thought he should check the clothes before bringing them to court due to “things that have happened in the past in Ware’s case.”
“When I opened the left shoe, I felt of the insole, didn't feel right, pulled out the insole, under the insole was what I believe to be a 1/2-ounce of marijuana. I then returned back to my office, went to the conference room, met with my partner Mr. Slagle (Mark Slagle of Slagle & Finney), and said, ‘What do we do?’”
Finney told Beck that what they did was leave everything "sitting exactly where it was," and come to court. He said he planned to call Johnson City Police Chief John Lowry before leaving the courthouse after Beck ruled on his motion to withdraw.
Beck remarked to Finney that his allegation made him, "potentially a possessor of marijuana, an illegal substance, at least that would be the suspicion."
Beck gave Ware an opportunity to speak later in the hearing. He said “no” to wanting a mistrial, and claimed, “I don’t really know what’s going on.” He also expressed a desire to keep Finney as his attorney.
Beck allowed Finney to withdraw after he advised he could not “zealously” represent a man who had just called him a “sellout, a crooked lawyer, or something.”
Sullivan County Deputy District Attorney Gene Perrin advised the court this marks the second time Ware is accused of conspiring to smuggle contraband into the jail through his defense counsel.
Weeks away from an earlier scheduled trial date, Ware’s previous appointed attorneys, Jim Bowman and Stacy Street, received photographs from a Gretchen Rochowiak “under the pretext that these photographs were to be used as part of the mitigation evidence” they were putting together for Ware.
When Bowman and Street’s investigator brought the photographs into the jail, officers there discovered the drug Suboxone (buprenorphine) concealed between the front and back of one. The resulting investigation necessitated the withdrawal of Street and Bowman from the case.
Perrin said Ware and three co-conspirators were each charged with conspiracy to introduce contraband into a penal institution and introduction of buprenorphine into a penal institution. The co-conspirators, identified as Shannon Lee Thompson, Michael Robert Bowling, and Gretchen Rochowiak have resolved their cases and are prepared to testify to Ware “masterminding” the scheme to get those drugs into the jail, he concluded.
After the hearing, Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus acknowledged Finney’s plan to talk to the JCPD about the marijuana, but said he believes the case should be handled in Sullivan County court because the attempt was to get the marijuana into the Sullivan County jail.
Staubus said of Beck’s decision to declare a mistrial, “There was no other remedy, there was no other way to proceed under the circumstances.”
The outcome meant Staubus could have sought the death penalty once again. He said he “could” have done so, but believes it is more “prudent” to avoid the associated “complications” and “delay” in order to expedite the process of getting the case back to trial.
Before Ware’s next trial date, Staubus said Ware’s next appointed attorney will be supplied with the “voluminous” amount of discovery materials associated with Ware’s case, including the “items” that were going to be the subject of a planned hearing in which Finney was expected to seek to have Ware’s charges dismissed mid-trial.
According to court records, those items included three recorded interviews discovered after opening statements had been given.
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Wow what a circus