Collar bomb defendant wants a new lawyer

An assistant federal public defender who represents Diehl-Armstrong says his
client is mentally ill.

ERIE, Pa. (AP) — The woman accused of planning an elaborate bank robbery that ended in the death of a pizza deliveryman wants a new lawyer.

“Who can I get that’s aggressive [and] experienced?” defendant Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong wrote in a letter posted Friday in court filings.

“I’m 100 percent innocent, don’t want to die in prison for something I didn’t do. I’d take any lie detector tests, truth serum, etc., to exonerate myself in Wells case. I am not crazy. I am very intelligent and innocent. Please get me help,” she wrote in the letter, which was handwritten and dated Jan. 6.

Diehl-Armstrong, 58, was indicted in July along with Kenneth Barnes, 54, on charges of bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms violation in connection with the August 2003 robbery of a PNC Bank in Summit Township.

Pizza deliveryman Brian Wells, 46, told police he had been forced at gunpoint to wear a time bomb around his neck and rob the bank. As officers waited for the bomb squad to arrive, the device exploded, killing Wells. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes have pleaded not guilty.

Thomas Patton, an assistant federal public defender who represents Diehl-Armstrong, says his client is mentally ill.

In her letter, Diehl-Armstrong called Patton incompetent and said he lacks “fire in the belly” and charisma.

Patton and a prosecutor declined to comment on the letter.

U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin scheduled a hearing for Friday on Diehl-Armstrong’s request, which comes before a Jan. 31 deadline for pretrial motions.

Wells was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, although his family insists he did not know the suspects and had nothing to do with the plot.

Prosecutors contend that Diehl-Armstrong planned to use the bank money to hire someone to kill her father.

She is serving seven to 20 years in state prison after pleading guilty but mentally ill to killing her boyfriend, James Roden, 45, in 2003. Prosecutors said she killed Roden because she feared he would tell authorities of the bank robbery plot.