Accused steps back from plea bargain

COLUMBUS -- A 28-year-old Columbus man accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman after abducting her and driving her to a remote location west of town put the brakes on his sentencing.

Defendant Filipe Jimenes-Picasso, who pleaded no contest in September to third-degree sexual assault and procuring alcohol for a minor in a late-night June 6 assault, appeared to have an 11th-hour change of heart during a sentencing hearing in Platte County District Court.

Does your client want to withdraw his pleas?, asked Judge Robert Steinke, speaking to Jimenes-Picasso’s counsel, Public Defender Sam Bethune, during the hearing.

“If your client wants to file a motion to withdraw his pleas, I’ll give you a chance to do that,” Steinke told Jimenes-Picasso standing before the bench. “I’ll give him a chance to file the motion, then we’ll hear it.”

Bethune appeared to be blindsided by his client balking as the judge was about to impose a sentence for the two Class I misdemeanors. Jimenes-Picasso seemed to be upset that a co-defendant in the case had received a more lenient plea agreement offer from the Platte County Attorney’s Office.

The terms of Jimenes-Picasso’s plea bargain would require him to register under the state’s sex offender registration act. A co-defendant in the case, Jorge Noe-Reyes, pleaded no contest to third-degree assault and procuring alcohol for a minor. He does not have to register as a sex offender.

“In my opinion it would be a monumental mistake for my client to withdraw his pleas,’’ Bethune said following the sentencing hearing. “I’m convinced the plea deal offer was a good one.”

Steinke scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. Tuesday for arguments on a motion to withdraw the defendant’s pleas in the case.

Noe-Reyes is set for sentencing at 10 a.m. Nov. 20.

A third defendant in the case, a 17-year-old juvenile who is not being identified because of his age, is scheduled to enter a plea on Tuesday in district court. He is charged with first-degree sexual assault, but has also been offered a plea deal by the prosecution.

The investigation of the June 5 incident began late on the morning of June 6 when the victim reported being “raped” by three men after being “forced” into their car near a parking lot behind an 11th Street bar, Platte County Sheriff’s Investigator James Fairchild said in an arrest affidavit filed in the case.

The investigator said the victim said she had met the two men and the boy earlier in the evening.

The victim said after being abducted she was driven to a “remote location” west of Columbus and south of Shady Lake Road, where she was “repeatedly” assaulted and forced to perform sex acts, Fairchild said in his statement.

The victim, Fairchild reported, said she was then driven back to the site of her abduction and released by the three defendants.

During an examination at Northeast Nebraska Child Advocacy in Norfolk, the medical staff noted the victim suffered injuries including contusions and lesions on several areas of her body and a fissure consistent with sexual assault.

On the evening of June 6, Fairchild said he and the victim returned to the area behind the 11th street bar, with the victim identifying the three defendants involved in the assaults.

The three defendants were later arrested over a period of several hours on June 6 and June 7, Fairchild said. The defendants admitted having sex with the victim, but “claimed” it was consensual, the investigator said.