Woman's attorney says daughter behind attempted murder
Defense attorneys working to free a Mundelein woman who pleaded guilty to trying to kill her ex-husband hope to use in court an unauthorized telephone recording of the woman's daughter asking an ex-boyfriend to commit the murder.
Gillian Gosch, defense attorney for Sandra Rogers, told Lake County Judge John Phillips the alleged recording of Robin Rogers — then 14 — took place before the 2003 sledgehammer attack on her father, Rick Rogers, and his new wife, Angela Gloria, in their Lincolnshire home.
Gosch said Wednesday she would have filed paperwork earlier to enter the recordings into evidence, but she had just received them from prosecutors the previous day.
“It lends to our argument that Robin (Rogers) was the other accomplice in the attack,” she said when questioned by media outside the courtroom. “We intend to file a motion to introduce this evidence, but we need to find other rulings where phone conversations like this were allowed into court.”
Gosch said the law prevents her from using unauthorized phone wiretaps in court as evidence. She added that Rick Rogers secretly recorded phone conversations in his home, including those by Robin Rogers, who is now 23.
It is the latest twist in the case of Sandra Rogers, who pleaded guilty in the attack and has been in prison since 2004.
Sandra Rogers was charged with attempted murder for using a sledgehammer to attack the couple with the help of Robin Roger's 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Jonathon McMeekin. Both victims survived the attack.
Sandra Rogers has long maintained her innocence, but McMeekin pleaded guilty to attempted murder and is in prison.
McMeekin was originally going to testify against Sandra Rogers had the case gone to trial in 2004, but she cut a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Phillips overturned that plea deal in 2012 because evidence in the case that could have assisted defense attorneys was not shared by the state. He reset the case to where it ended in 2004. The trial is slated to begin Monday.
Gosch stated previously she intends to prove Sandra Rogers was not involved in the attempted murder, and that Robin Rogers was behind the attack. Gosch said she will also introduce poems and other writings of Robin Rogers showing she wanted her father dead.