A former Mobile court police officer who admitted to plotting to kill a man in an unraveling mortgage fraud scheme is trying to revoke his guilty plea in court.
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| Kinard Henson |
Barker was a straw buyer in a conspiracy to buy properties at inflated prices through fraudulent mortgages, a scheme in which Henson was being investigated by federal authorities, according to court records.
As the investigation began, Henson and his cousin lured Barker to the wooded area on the pretense of moving furniture, and Henson’s cousin then shot Barker three times, according to prosecutors.
Henson pleaded guilty in 2010, but he tried to have his guilty plea withdrawn before being sentenced. Mobile County Circuit Judge James Wood denied that request before handing down the 15-year sentence.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled this month that the 15-year sentence reached under a plea bargain is less than the 20-year minimum required by state law for attempted murder with a firearm.
The appeals court ordered Henson to be sentenced again.
Henson’s attorney, Glenn Davidson, said because Henson was misinformed about the possible punishment at the time he pleaded guilty, Henson should be allowed to reverse his plea.
“Now that it has been disclosed to him that it is a 20-year minimum, he doesn’t want to plead to guilty to that,” said Davidson, who did not represent Henson at the original sentencing.
Henson, who has been incarcerated for nearly three years, still faces charges of wire fraud, money laundering and attempted murder of a witness in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, where prosecutors allege the mortgage fraud scheme was based.
According to the federal indictment, Henson conspired to make fraudulent mortgages for properties in New Jersey at inflated properties, defrauding more than $1 million from lenders.
The federal indictment came down in July 2010, but court records indicate there has been no further action taken in the case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Camden, New Jersey did not respond to a request for comment.
Henson, himself, was the victim of a shooting in 1997 when he was a courthouse police officer. The shooting left him with limited use of his left hand and ended in the death of a fellow courthouse officer.
Shortly after that, he went to work for the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office, where he served subpoenas and arrest warrants in bad check cases and instances where people had failed to pay court-ordered money.
Henson has also argued in court that he was coerced to plead guilty by threats on his life and his family members’ lives made by the architect of the fraud in New Jersey.
Before the sentencing, Wood rejected that argument and ruled that Henson’s plea had been made voluntarily. The appeals court this month upheld that decision.
Henson also pleaded guilty in Mobile County Circuit Court to bribing a witness for allegedly attempting to pay Barker to drop the attempted murder case.
Barker was shot once in the back of head and once in each arm, but he managed to escape into the woods and survived, prosecutors have said.
Henson’s cousin, Roderick Sykes, was accused by prosecutors of being the shooter, which Sykes has denied.
In 2009, a jury refused to convict Sykes of attempted murder and instead handed down a conviction of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.
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