plead guilty in federal court for trying to hire someone to kill an
11-year-old witness who testified at his trial, his lawyer said yesterday.
DeAndre Whitehead, 20, is scheduled to appear Thursday in U.S. District
Court in Baltimore. At the hearing, he is expected to plead guilty to one
count of soliciting to commit a crime of violence, said Beth Faber, an
assistant federal public defender.
The case stems from the August 2003 shooting of Russell Peterson, 47,
killed outside his Southwest Baltimore rowhouse. Peterson’s 10-year-old
daughter witnessed the fatal shooting, authorities said. After his arrest,
Whitehead tried to hire someone to kill the girl and her mother, according to
prosecutors.
After he was acquitted of murder in state court, Whitehead was charged in
federal court with trying to silence the witnesses.
The maximum penalty for murder-for-hire is 10 years. But in a deal reached
with federal prosecutors, Whitehead will serve six years in prison for
pleading guilty to one of two counts of soliciting to commit a crime of
violence. Prosecutors agreed to drop the second count. Whitehead has been in
custody since shortly after Peterson’s killing.
“Everyone felt it was a fair and reasonable way to resolve the case so that
the family doesn’t have to testify,” Faber said.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the case other than to
confirm the guilty plea would not be official until the court hearing.
Whitehead’s path to federal court has become a well-worn route for a number
of witness-intimidation prosecutions. In February, federal prosecutors took
over the case against five men accused of the January firebombing of the home
of a North Baltimore community leader who challenged local drug dealers in
Harwood.
And in an earlier case, the deaths in 2002 of seven members of the Dawson
family in East Baltimore led to the federal prosecution of Darrell L. Brooks,
who pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life sentence in prison without
parole. The Dawsons had made regular calls to police about illegal drug sales
in their neighborhood.
This year, concern over the isssue led the General Assembly to pass a bill
increasing the penalties for witness intimidation and allowing some of
out-of-court statements of witnesses to be used as evidence at trials.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings also introduced two bills in Congress to beef up
short-term witness-protection options for state witnesses and to funnel
drug-policy money into neighborhood crime-reporting programs.
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Prosecutors said the killing in which Whitehead had been charged was
prompted by an argument over fake drugs between Peterson’s wife, Patricia, and
Whitehead. Peterson’s daughter, Tashiera, said she woke up to her father
yelling from her bedroom window.
Tashiera said that she followed as her father walked outside and confronted
Whitehead. When her father tried to break up the fight, Tashiera told police
she saw Whitehead shoot him. Police said Whitehead put out a contract on
Peterson’s wife and daughter shortly after he was arrested.
According to court documents, a wiretap inside the city jail recorded
Whitehead giving a cellmate information about the girl’s location. He also
promised money and drugs for the killings.
In January 2004, Whitehead was indicted in the state system on charges that
he had conspired to kill the mother and daughter, but a judge ruled that he
should face those charges after he was tried in Peterson’s killing.
During that trial, Whitehead’s defense lawyer argued that the girl and her
mother had misidentified her client. On July 14, a jury threw out all of the
charges against Whitehead.
Because of evidence rules, jurors had not heard the tape recording from
jail in which Whitehead tried to set up the killing of the witnesses against
him.
The day of the verdict, Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy
asked then-Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio to consider federal
charges. Later, she dropped the state charges of solicitation to commit murder
so federal prosecutors could take over the case.
In January, a relative of Tashiera’s urged lawmakers in Annapolis to pass
laws to strengthen protection for witnesses and the penalties for those who
tried to intimidate them.