A judge has denied George Weaver Jr.'s motion to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in March for a plot to steal and sell drugs seized by the Nebraska State Patrol.
In a letter this week, Weaver blamed his attorney for, among other things, failing to request a hearing to determine if Weaver was competent prior to the plea hearing.
In an order Thursday, Senior U.S. District Judge John Gerrard said a plea of guilty shouldn't be disregarded because of belated misgivings about its wisdom.
Here, he said, there was no indication of a fair and just reason to allow Weaver to withdraw his plea.
"The defendant's arguments are both unpersuasive and inconsistent," the judge said, pointing out Weaver's own self-contradictions about counsel in his motion, for instance faulting his attorney for requesting discovery and then requesting it himself.
As for Weaver's contention there should have been a hearing to determine if he was competent to plead guilty, Gerrard said the magistrate judge considered competency in accepting his plea and in allowing him to represent himself. And she did so on Weaver's own representations regarding his ability to proceed, "which were unequivocal."
Gerrard said it also was noteworthy that Weaver didn't say he was incompetent or that he hadn't entered his guilty plea knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily.
In March, Weaver pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine, fentanyl and marijuana in exchange for prosecutors dropping three additional counts.
He will face a minimum of 20 years and up to life in federal prison at his sentencing in October. His co-defendant, Anna Idigima, is set for sentencing on the same charge later this month.
At the plea hearing, federal prosecutors said Weaver and his girlfriend, Idigima, who was working as a State Patrol evidence technician, conspired in 2021 to steal drugs being held in completed cases, awaiting destruction.
She was fired that August after the plot was discovered by the Lincoln/Lancaster County Narcotics Task Force, amid a spate of overdoses in the area. And an audit of the State Patrol’s storage facility found that 154 pounds of marijuana, 19 pounds of cocaine and 6 pounds of fentanyl were missing.
Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, can be purchased and deployed by anyone and is available for free at eight area pharmacies, a list of which is published at stopodne.com.