Disbarred lawyer guilty in bizarre kidnap
SACRAMENTO (AP) – A disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney is trying to avoid a life prison sentence with a plea bargain in a kidnapping so elaborate and bizarre that police in California initially dismissed it as a hoax.
Matthew Muller pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Sacramento, acknowledging he used computer-generated voices, blackened swim goggles, liquid sleeping medication and numerous props in the abduction of Denise Huskins last year from the Vallejo home she shared with boyfriend Aaron Quinn.
Under the plea deal, federal prosecutors agreed to seek no more than 40 years in prison, but Muller’s attorney, Thomas Johnson, said he fears U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley will impose a life term when Muller is sentenced on Jan. 19.
“We’re trying to find a way to get Mr. Muller to be rehabilitated and allow him to return and lead a productive life,” Johnson said in an interview outside the courtroom. “I think that Mr. Muller has tremendous potential. ... There was another side of Mr. Muller that was the side that allowed him to commit these crimes.”
Johnson said the 39year-old Muller has been diagnosed as manic and depressive.
During the kidnapping, Muller put blackened swim goggles over the eyes of Huskins and Quinn and headphones over their ears to play a recorded warning that Huskins’ face would be cut or she would be hurt with an electric shock if they didn’t comply, according to court documents.
In addition, authorities found Muller had made a computer recording designed to simulate people whispering in an apparent attempt to make it seem as though he had accomplices.