Morning Call Story Quotes Hope Lefeber on Request to Withdraw Guilty Plea

A Sept. 15, 2014 news article from The Morning Call (Allentown) quotes federal criminal defense attorney Hope C. Lefeber regarding Sonia Panell’s decision to withdraw her guilty plea agreement.

Lefeber, Panell’s defense attorney, said the government should have revealed that an informant who recorded Panell plotting to kill three key witnesses in her husband’s murder case was desperate for money when he agreed to wear a wire for the FBI. If prosecutors had revealed the man was an ex-con with a history of lying to law enforcement, as they were required to do, Panell would not have pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire charges last month, the story quotes Lefeber as saying

“The government has committed outrageous misconduct in withholding information that is directly relevant to innocence of the defendant and the integrity of the government’s case and its informant,” Lefeber said.

Click here to read the full story in The Morning Call.