Counting the hours: happy New Year is on for Richey

Published on Friday 28 December 2007 20:48

KENNY Richey will spend Hogmanay behind bars in the United States before heading to Scotland as a free man as early as next weekend.

Lawyers for the Scot, who spent two decades on Death Row for a murder he insists he did not commit, are in negot-iations with prosecutors in Ohio to bring forward a plea hearing five days to 3 January.

If approved, it would mean Richey, 43, could be on a plane back to Edinburgh as early as Thursday night – two weeks after his first hope of freedom was dashed when he collapsed with chest pains and was taken to hospital hours before the original hearing, which was then postponed.

"He knows he's coming out and that's all he's focusing on," said Karen Torley, Richey's former fiance who has long campaigned for his release.

She said Richey was "disappointed" he had to remain in Ohio's Putnam County jail over the Christmas and New Year holidays but his health had improved and he was looking forward to his release after 21 years in custody. "He's feeling brilliant," she said.

According to his lawyer, he will plead "no contest" to charges of involuntary man-slaughter, endangering a child and breaking and entering stemming from a 1986 arson attack that killed a two-year-old girl. In return, he will be sentenced to time already served and be ordered to leave the country immediately, even though he holds dual UK-US nationality.

A spokesperson for Gary Lammers, the Putnam County prosecutor, said last night that no new date had been fixed for the hearing, which was still listed on the court docket for 10am on 8 January.

But an informal agreement to bring the hearing forward is believed to exist between Mr Lammers and Richey's lawyer, Ken Parsigian, which will be confirmed when the prosecutor returns from holiday on Monday – if the judge agrees.

"We need a date that both the judge and prosecutors can make, but we want to make it happen as soon as possible," Mr Parsigian said this week.

In any event, the negotiations over the 30-minute hearing look likely to be the final actions in Richey's 21-year battle through the US appeal system.