A deal that capped the prison term for Marlek Holmes at 25 years and saved the county the expense of another trial almost came apart after Holmes appeared to renege on the agreement.
As part of the deal, Holmes had to agree to drop an appeal related to his conviction on sexual assault, and everybody -- District Attorney Lawrence Friedman, Defense Attorney Fred Rarick, appeals attorney Timothy Murphy, and Holmes himself -- all signed the document Murphy was supposed to send to the appeals court informing the justices that the appeal was dropped.
Then Holmes wrote Murphy and said he changed his mind.
Today, Holmes was transported from Auburn, where he is serving his sentence, to Batavia, and after meeting with Rarick and Murphy for 30 minutes, agreed to stick by his original agreement to drop the appeal.
Friedman said he wanted to make clear on the record, however, that there is little to prevent Holmes from just changing his mind again later, and creating an endless loop of back-and-forth over the case.
If Holmes does back out of the deal again, Friedman said as far as he's concerned, there won't be a second chance. He will make motions to proceed with a trial on the charges against Holmes that he failed to register a change of address as a convicted sex offender in 2016. He would also want to proceed with a hearing on whether Holmes is a persistent violent felony offender, which would expose Holmes to a potentially harsher prison sentence on his conviction of assault on fellow inmates at the Genesee County Jail.
Zambito indicated he would be inclined to entertain those motions if Holmes again changed his mind.
