A convicted murderer who once faced a potential death sentence will instead be sentenced to 11 years in prison, partly because his attorneys have accused a former prosecutor on the case of unethical conduct.
A Pima County grand jury indicted Darren Irving Goldin, 52, on a charge of first-degree murder in May 2010 for his part in the killing of fellow drug dealer Kevin David Estep, 38, a decade earlier.
Prosecutor Richard Wintory initially said Goldin was eligible for the death penalty because he was serving time for another murder and Estep's death was a murder-for-hire, among other reasons.
But in August, Wintory's supervisor, Kim Ortiz, said the office was no longer seeking the death penalty. On Friday, Goldin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and will begin serving an 11-year sentence in 2016, after he finishes serving a 16-year Maricopa County murder sentence.
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Ortiz would not comment after Friday's hearing, but court documents show defense attorneys and the Arizona Attorney General's Office have been embroiled in a battle over Wintory's handling of a defense witness.
In addition, defense attorney Thomas Hippert told Judge Richard Fields during a settlement conference Dec. 18 that Wintory and two of his staff members were forced out of their jobs over the Goldin case.
After Wintory was removed from the Goldin case, he quit the Arizona Attorney General's Office in September. His secretary, Ann DeBellis, also quit and now works with him at the Pinal County Attorney's Office.
"I'm used to defense attorneys using whatever they have in hand to get me off cases, and that's what happened here," Wintory said Friday. "I just did not expect that the personal agenda of my colleagues would weigh in favor of helping them to do that."
Tari Parish, Wintory's senior paralegal, filed a bar complaint against Ortiz on Monday, saying she was fired for refusing to alter a signed affidavit supporting Wintory's version of events.
The trouble in the Goldin case began with the hiring of a confidential intermediary. When defendants face a potential death sentence, their attorneys must look at two generations of the defendant's family in the hopes of finding mitigating evidence.
Because Goldin was adopted as an infant, Pima County Superior Court Judge Terry Chandler gave Hippert permission to hire a confidential intermediary to find and question Goldin's biological mother.
Mary Fornino, of the Arizona Supreme Court Confidential Intermediary Program, found the woman, but she did not want to cooperate and Fornino felt the defense was pressuring her to violate ethical rules.
Wintory told the judge that Fornino had called him with her concerns but he said they did not discuss the facts of the case. Hippert filed a motion Sept. 9, 2011, seeking to have Wintory and the rest of the Arizona Attorney General's Office removed from the case, writing that Wintory's "unethical behavior combined with that of Ms. Fornino completely obliterated the ability to conduct further mitigation investigation."
While the AG's office insisted there was no evidence Wintory obtained confidential information from Fornino, the office and Goldin's defense team both launched investigations into Wintory's actions.
Ortiz alleged Wintory had failed to disclose multiple phone conversations with Fornino, and that Wintory did not immediately tell her his paralegal, Parish, was present for the first phone conversation and could corroborate what was said. Phone records revealed Wintory and Fornino spoke seven times between Aug. 11 and Sept.12, 2011. One time was after the judge had expressed concerns over the two talking.
Wintory insists he and Fornino did not discuss details of the case and so nothing unethical occurred. Wintory said the first time they talked, he advised her to hire an attorney to help in her battle with Hippert. Subsequent conversations focused on the "mechanics" of doing that and whether the AG's Office could help since she was a state employee.
In her bar complaint, Parish wrote that Ortiz repeatedly asked her if she wanted to change a sworn affidavit in which she recalled a series of calls leading up to Fornino and Wintory speaking. "She wanted me to make a statement that fit the 'evidence' that she had gathered," Parish wrote. "I again told her that everything in my affidavit was true."
She said she was fired about an hour later.
Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com
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