Judge rules McMullan must serve full 27 years
Less than two hours could cost Jennifer McMullan the next 20 years of her life.
A McHenry County judge today refused to hold prosecutors to a deal that would have let the Round Lake woman out of prison about two decades early, ruling that she had broken her pledge to fully cooperate against a co-defendant in the 2001 slaying of a Lakemoor businessman.
The decision came after Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney Michael Combs testified that McMullan, 26, changed her story on at least three issues, including the timing of two co-defendants' movements after the murder. The change altered the timing by one hour and 50 minutes.
The contradiction, Judge Joseph Condon ruled today, was enough for prosecutors to declare McMullan violated the deal by not telling the truth at all times.
"A lawyer has the obligation to put on what he believes is truthful testimony," Condon said. "Based on what Mr. Combs told me I concur in his statement that he did not have that reasonable belief."
The ruling, along with prosecutors' decision to pull the deal, angered McMullan's family members and friends who had come to court for today's hearing. One was questioned by police, but not charged, over a remark made to Combs outside the courtroom.
"This is the most crooked place I've ever seen," McMullan's mother, Linda Johnson, said.
McMullan was expected to be a key prosecution witness this week in the trial of her co-defendant, Kenneth Smith. Along with two others, they had been charged with killing business owner Raul Briseno during a March 6, 2001, robbery of his Burrito Express restaurant in McHenry.
McMullan, the convicted getaway driver, was to be let out of prison after serving about six years of a 27-year sentence in return for her taking the witness stand against Smith.
But prosecutors unexpectedly pulled the plug on her testimony, and then her deal, earlier this week after she and her lawyer, Steven Schwarzbach, made statements Combs described as "very disturbing."
"I had concerns about the veracity of her statements. I had concerns that she would say anything just to get her deal. And I had concerns, based on Mr. Schwarzbach's representations, that she was going to be coached," he said.
McMullan denied Combs' claims she had contradicted her earlier statements, instead saying it was he who wanted her testimony changed.
"He said (my account) didn't fit their theory," McMullan testified.
Schwarzbach said McMullan will appeal Condon's ruling.
Even without McMullan, prosecutors won a conviction against Smith, 32, of Park City, as a jury late Thursday night ruled him guilty of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery for Briseno's slaying.