Merriman’s Mother to Serve 2 Years

Despite her lack of a criminal record, Beverlee Sue Merriman was sentenced Monday to two years in state prison for conspiring with her white-supremacist son, Justin, to intimidate witnesses in his pending murder case.

The 52-year-old Merriman’s jaw dropped and she held her hands to her face as Ventura County Superior Court Judge James P. Cloninger rejected a plea for probation and instead ordered prison time.

The stiffer sentence was warranted, Cloninger said, given the defendant’s lack of remorse and dishonest statements to probation officials about her criminal culpability.

“I have before me a person who thinks she has done nothing wrong,” Cloninger said. “She is out of touch with reality.”

Although Merriman pleaded guilty in April to two counts of conspiracy, her lawyers argued Monday that she simply wanted to end a long, emotional trial that for the first time had raised doubts in her own mind about her son’s innocence.

Justin Merriman, 27, is facing murder charges in connection with the 1992 slaying of 20-year-old Santa Monica College student Katrina Montgomery. Authorities say he raped, stabbed and bludgeoned Montgomery after they attended a skinhead gang party in Oxnard thrown by mutual friends.

After the slaying, prosecutors say, Justin Merriman forced two younger gang members to help dispose of the body, which has never been found. One of those men later told authorities about the attack.

Authorities say that’s when Justin Merriman launched a conspiracy with his mother and two other women--who have since pleaded guilty--to silence witnesses.

During Monday’s three-hour sentencing hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh said that Beverlee Sue Merriman spent years covering up for her son.

“Frankly, Your Honor ought to make an example out of her,” Bamieh argued, asking the judge to send a message that Ventura County will not tolerate witness intimidation. “I say put her in prison. That’s where she belongs.”

Defense attorney Richard Hanawalt argued, however, that his client never knowingly participated in a plot to threaten witnesses.

Hanawalt said Beverlee Sue Merriman believed that her son was innocent and that she became an unwitting accomplice when her son asked her to mail letters to known gang members that identified “rats” who needed to be harmed.

Prosecutors alleged that the mother also arranged jail meetings so her son could persuade an eyewitness not to testify.

But the defense argued that those meetings were instead orchestrated by heavy-handed investigators hoping to build a high-profile murder case against Justin Merriman, who faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

“This is something prosecutors don’t understand,” Hanawalt argued. “Mothers do tend to love their sons.”

Cloninger could have imposed as many as six years. But given her lack of a criminal record, he ordered Merriman to serve only two. Because she has already served a year in custody, she will probably serve only a few months more, her lawyers said.

Outside the courtroom after Monday’s sentencing, Bamieh said Merriman denied her role up to the end--even though the evidence showed that she was involved in a plot to threaten and induce false testimony from witnesses.

While he regretted that the sentence wasn’t longer, Bamieh said he was pleased that she was headed to prison.

“The goal was to put her in prison,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hanawalt and co-counsel Tamara Green said their client was confused and disheartened by the judge’s ruling, specifically his remarks that she had been dishonest with a probation officer. Green said her client never intended to hurt anyone and doesn’t belong in prison.

“I don’t think what she did was illegal,” Green said, criticizing prosecutors for pursuing the case. “It’s justice we’re after for the citizens of Ventura County--not a head count.”