Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser accessory-related charge in the 1997 Oklahoma City killing of motel owner Barry Van Treese, his attorney said.
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Former Oklahoma death row prisoner Richard Glossip has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge connected to the 1997 killing of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, his lawyer said Thursday.
Glossip, who had been sentenced to death in Oklahoma City over the killing, had faced execution three times before the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction and he was released on bond in May to await retrial.
His attorney, Don Knight, said the murder charge was dismissed after the plea, with Glossip to be sentenced in December.
Knight said Glossip will be sentenced on an accessory charge, adding that the plea acknowledges prosecutors’ allegations that he helped place plexiglass over a broken window at the motel. Knight said Van Treese’s body was inside the room and that Glossip did not know it was there and never saw it.
The prosecution had also alleged that Glossip did not immediately tell police that Justin Sneed told him he killed Van Treese, but Knight said Glossip did not believe that at the time.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had previously said the state would seek to retry Glossip on a murder charge but would not pursue the death penalty again. In a statement sent to media outlets, Drummond said accepting the plea was meant to secure a conviction related to Van Treese’s killing and allow prosecutors to seek additional prison time.
Drummond said the agreement “ensures a conviction related to Mr. Van Treese’s killing and gives us the best chance to secure additional prison time for Glossip.”
Knight said Glossip has “more than paid his debt to society” after spending nearly 30 years incarcerated, including time on death row and periods when he came within minutes of being executed, before the execution dates were set aside.
Courts in Oklahoma set nine different execution dates for Glossip, and he was placed in a cell next to the execution chamber in 2015 as officials prepared lethal injection, before an execution was halted after a mix-up involving lethal drugs contributed to a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions in the state.
Van Treese’s killing was the subject of allegations that he was beaten with a baseball bat as part of what prosecutors described as a murder-for-hire scheme. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing and killing Van Treese, and was sentenced to life in prison after testifying against Glossip. Sneed’s testimony said he acted after Glossip promised him $10,000.
The case attracted international attention, including support that included actress Susan Sarandon, and it was later the subject of the 2017 documentary film “Killing Richard Glossip.”
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