NORWICH – With a ruling by the state court of appeals, murder charges will be filed in Chenango County for the first time in approximately 4 years.
A former Masonville woman who accepted a plea in connection with the 2000 murder of a Norwich man, Edward Pastore Jr., had her deal thrown out by the state supreme court recently on an appeal that argued that the plea was not properly brokered. She will soon be back in Chenango County Court.
Tammie L. Van Deusen, who was 24 when sentenced in 2001, has been serving an 8-year sentence for her August, 2000 admittance to robbery in the first degree. She was one of five defendants convicted in connection to the July 17, 2000 murder that took place at Pastore’s 118 Lewis Road home.
According to a June 30 article in The Ithaca Journal, the plea was rejected because county court officials failed to fully inform Van Deusen of the terms of her plea bargain. Specifically, the court ruled that at the time of her plea Van Deusen was not made aware that she was subject to post-release supervision. Her initial attempt to withdraw her plea was denied by County Court Judge W. Howard Sullivan and she was sentenced on Jan. 22, 2001.
“The failure of a court to advise of post-release supervision requires reversal of the conviction,” The Journal quoted Chief Judge Judith Kaye as writing in her decision.
“At the time (Van Deusen) pleaded guilty, she did not possess all the information necessary for an informed choice among different possible courses of action,” a memorandum on the court’s Web site states.
District Attorney Joseph A. McBride said Wednesday that when Van Deusen took the plea, no case precedent or law required post-release supervision to be a part of it. Because the case is now reopened, he declined to give further comment on the defendant or the acts she is charged with committing.
“She starts from square one. She is going to be charged with murder in second degree,” he said.
In addition to murder, Van Deusen was originally charged with first and second degree burglary, first degree criminal use of a firearm and conspiracy in connection with a home invasion.
Throughout Van Deusen’s 2000 and 2001 court proceedings, prosecutors charged that the former Norwich City Schools student was in a vehicle with former Masonville man, Paul Escalante, when he directed Staten Island common-law couple Xavier Valentine and Joanne Carroll to Pastore’s residence the night of the murder. The couple both pleaded out of the case.
Until now, county legal action in the Pastore murder ended March 1, 2001 with the acquittal of Norwich man Joshua Neadom. Neadom was the only defendant of six charged in the murder to go to trial. The proceedings in the Chenango County Courthouse lasted 14 days and included a sequestering of the jury before he was cleared of all charges.