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A man accused of killing a former Baltimore police commissioner's stepdaughter pleaded guilty to lesser assault charges Tuesday, suggesting that the murder case against him was weak.
Joseph Antonio Bonds, 36, entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to maintain his innocence while admitting that prosecutors likely had enough evidence to win an assault conviction against him. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with all but eight years suspended.
He faced life in prison if convicted of murder.
"I'm fighting for my life here," Bonds told Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. Doory, who called the plea decision reasonable.
"It's a great gamble to try a case like this," Doory said.
According to court records, Nicole Desiree Sesker was found dead under a backyard deck in the 3500 block of W. Garrison Ave. the morning of June 27, 2008, a day after her 39th birthday. An autopsy report showed that she had been strangled and beaten, and a medical examiner ruled her death a homicide.
The killing roiled the police department. Sesker was the stepdaughter of Leonard D. Hamm, who had resigned as Baltimore Police Commissioner a year earlier. His relationship with Sesker, a heroin addict and prostitute, was chronicled in The New York Times several years earlier and came to represent the painful toll addiction takes on families.
Bonds and Sesker were acquaintances, and a witness placed them together the night before her body was discovered, Assistant State's Attorney Lisa Goldberg told the court. The witness alleged that Bonds and Sesker got into an argument over drugs and he pushed her against a wall close to midnight, his hand tightening around her throat as she yelled "Stop, stop!" Bonds' DNA was later recovered from beneath the fingernails of Sesker's right hand.
But that attack couldn't have killed her, Goldberg said: It would have caused "serious injury, but not fatal injury." Witnesses said they saw Sesker walking around afterward. Something else had to have happened to her later, Goldberg said.
In an interview after the hearing, Goldberg said the plea deal was "appropriate given the facts and circumstances of this case."
Bonds rejected a similar offer that also dropped the murder charge but carried more jail time Monday. He took this offer after consultation with his family, who appeared in court to support him, and his attorney, Assistant Public Defender James A. Johnston.
"He was understandably concerned about the potential penalties if he were convicted," Johnston said in an interview. He added later that he strongly believed Bonds would have been deemed not guilty at trial.
But Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said officers are confident they charged the right man.
"The killer has been put behind bars," he said.
Joseph Antonio Bonds, 36, entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to maintain his innocence while admitting that prosecutors likely had enough evidence to win an assault conviction against him. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with all but eight years suspended.
He faced life in prison if convicted of murder.
"I'm fighting for my life here," Bonds told Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. Doory, who called the plea decision reasonable.
"It's a great gamble to try a case like this," Doory said.
According to court records, Nicole Desiree Sesker was found dead under a backyard deck in the 3500 block of W. Garrison Ave. the morning of June 27, 2008, a day after her 39th birthday. An autopsy report showed that she had been strangled and beaten, and a medical examiner ruled her death a homicide.
The killing roiled the police department. Sesker was the stepdaughter of Leonard D. Hamm, who had resigned as Baltimore Police Commissioner a year earlier. His relationship with Sesker, a heroin addict and prostitute, was chronicled in The New York Times several years earlier and came to represent the painful toll addiction takes on families.
Bonds and Sesker were acquaintances, and a witness placed them together the night before her body was discovered, Assistant State's Attorney Lisa Goldberg told the court. The witness alleged that Bonds and Sesker got into an argument over drugs and he pushed her against a wall close to midnight, his hand tightening around her throat as she yelled "Stop, stop!" Bonds' DNA was later recovered from beneath the fingernails of Sesker's right hand.
But that attack couldn't have killed her, Goldberg said: It would have caused "serious injury, but not fatal injury." Witnesses said they saw Sesker walking around afterward. Something else had to have happened to her later, Goldberg said.
In an interview after the hearing, Goldberg said the plea deal was "appropriate given the facts and circumstances of this case."
Bonds rejected a similar offer that also dropped the murder charge but carried more jail time Monday. He took this offer after consultation with his family, who appeared in court to support him, and his attorney, Assistant Public Defender James A. Johnston.
"He was understandably concerned about the potential penalties if he were convicted," Johnston said in an interview. He added later that he strongly believed Bonds would have been deemed not guilty at trial.
But Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said officers are confident they charged the right man.
"The killer has been put behind bars," he said.
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