Landlord Robert Miell is now asking to withdraw his guilty pleas for 18 counts of mail fraud and two counts of perjury he made last year.
He was also convicted by a jury in January 2009 for two counts of tax fraud and is to be sentenced June 7.
Miell has a new lawyer now, Alfredo Parrish of Des Moines, and the motion filed Thursday claims he had ineffective counsel and the court didn’t inform him of the penalties and restitution he faces.
This wasn’t a surprise because at his sentencing hearing that started last September he attempted to tell the judge that he didn’t agree to the pleas or with what happened during the trial.
He said his attorney, F. Montgomery Brown, wouldn’t allow him testify, which is the the reason the sentencing was postponed because Miell jumped up after the second day of testimony and wanted to testify. His attorneys he hired after Brown, William Kutmus and Steven DeVolder, also didn’t want him to testify. They said it wasn’t in his best interest.
I think the attorneys were probably attempting to help Miell. Most defense attorneys will tell you they advise their clients in criminal cases not to take the stand.
There are 314 claims of restitution against Miell, according to a sentencing brief filed by the government. The intended loss amount for the damage deposit fraud scheme, Miell is accused of, is more than $1.2 million.
He is facing up to 370 years in prison, a $5 million fine and 60 years of supervised release.
March 16, 2010 at 8:50 pm
My mother used to live in Miell property. Nothing was ever fixed- she even had pieces of ceiling fall into her bathtub while she was bathing! He could often be seen dumpster diving outside her building. I hope he gets to spend a great deal of time in prison thinking about all of the people he screwed over.