Susan M. Fila, the disbarred Baltimore attorney who staged a carjacking and tried to kill her law partner to cover up her heroin-driven embezzlement, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison.
"What I did was terrible, horrible," Fila, 42, told a judge in her first public comment on the April 14 stabbing of her former partner, Charles Lamasa. "Standing before the court, I'm not the person who committed those terrible acts. I understand how my addiction made me the person who did."
Before sentencing Fila, Baltimore Circuit Judge Roger W. Brown said, "I have before me an individual who had a drug habit, but in addition to that habit, she did in fact design and carry out a scheme to kill somebody. Not just anybody, but a close friend and partner.
"As the saying goes, with friends like that, I'm sure Mr. Lamasa doesn't need enemies."
During the hearing, Fila said she was sorry Mr. Lamasa was not present to hear her apology. Mr. Lamasa, who was at a foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps about the time of the sentencing, said he did not attend the hearing because he was tired of the attention the case has brought him.
"I just really couldn't get into hoping or thinking about what the sentence would be," he said. "There's always hope for redemption. I wish her well."
Fila, who for a time conquered a heroin addiction with its roots in the 1970s, became a top law student who made her mark as a medical malpractice attorney before succumbing once again to the drug's lure. During yesterday's hearing, Howard B. "Chip" Silverman, a drug addiction treatment expert, said Fila had a $500- to $700-a-day heroin habit at the time of the stabbing.
'Diabolical' plot
"It's basically shooting the dope every 20 minutes," he said.
Deputy State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy said Fila's "diabolical" plot started three days before the stabbing, when she drugged Mr. Lamasa, and continued when she enlisted her drug contact, Tamme L. Newton, to help her try to kill him. Newton ambushed the former city prosecutor from the back of Fila's car, stabbing him six times.
Prosecutors said that during the attack, Fila drove past two hospitals despite orders to stop by Mr. Lamasa, who had overpowered Newton and gained control of the "survival-type" knife. Newton told police that after she took over the wheel and dropped Mr. Lamasa off at a hospital, she refused Fila's demands to run him over.
When Judge Brown mentioned this, along with Newton's claim that Fila drove around town hoping Mr. Lamasa would bleed to death, Fila's lawyer, Gregg L. Bernstein, said his client denied those allegations.
Newton, 35, pleaded guilty in October to attempted first-degree murder and a weapons charge. Her sentencing was postponed until Jan. 17.
Maximum sentence
Fila received the maximum sentence as provided under terms of an agreement in which she pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder. Had she gone to trial instead, she could have been subject to a penalty as severe as life in prison for that charge. In rejecting Mr. Bernstein's request for a more lenient sentence, Judge Brown said the plea bargain was a "tremendous break" because the case for attempted first-degree murder was strong.
He sentenced Fila to 20 years for attempted first-degree murder, and ordered two 15-year sentences for felony theft and a three-year term for a weapons charge to be served concurrently.
Fila agreed to pay $53,500 in restitution to Lamasa and a total of $32,000 to three former clients. She also consented to her disbarment.
During yesterday's hearing, Fila seemed nervous, but addressed the court in a clear, strong voice. She hung her head and cried when her lawyer read a portion of letter in which her son described a jail house visit -- after she had broken her heroin addiction.
"There, separated by glass, I saw the person that I once knew and loved, but had forgotten existed," wrote Thomas J. Brindisi, a lawyer living in California. "No longer transformed by drugs, she was free to truly care about other people and sincerely communicate."