Wanda Cooper-Jones intends to oppose the plea deal at a Monday morning hearing, attorney S. Lee Merritt said. Merritt spoke out after documents were filed Sunday in federal court, ahead of the men’s scheduled February 7 trial, showing the defendants had reached the deal with prosecutors. Details of the agreement were not specified, but Merritt said the family “is devastated” by it.The McMichaels were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole in a Glynn County, Georgia, court in early January for murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black jogger. The men were also indicted on federal hate crimes charges. The plea agreement has been sent to the US District for the Southern District of Georgia for consideration, the court filing said. An attorney for Gregory McMichael declined to comment on the agreement Monday.”The (US Department of Justice) has gone behind my back to offer the men who murdered my son a deal to make their time in prison easier for them to serve,” Cooper-Jones said in a statement. “I have made it clear at every possible moment that I do no agree to offer these men a plea deal of any kind. I have been completely betrayed by the DOJ lawyers.”Merritt called federal prison “a country club compared to state prison,” saying the facilities are less populated, have better funding and are “generally more accommodating” than state holding facilities, according to tweets from his account. “By admitting they were motivated by hate when they hunted & murdered Ahmaud Arbery these men get to transfer to safer, less crowded & more orderly federal detention facilities,” Merritt tweeted. “In essence they get to publicly brag about their hatred & then be rewarded by the federal government.”On January 7, ahead of the McMichaels’ sentencing in state court, Merritt said Arbery’s mother had rejected a plea deal put forth by federal prosecutors that would’ve put the McMichaels away for 30 years each. “She rejected that offer because we believe that today the state will move forward with life sentences without the possibility of parole, and we think that’s the appropriate sentence,” Merritt told CNN at the time. A third man convicted of killing Arbery and also charged in the federal hate crimes case, William “Roddie” Bryan, was not mentioned in Sunday’s court filings. Bryan, who shot video of Arbery’s killing, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.Merritt referred to the plea agreement as a “back room deal” and said, “This is an example of the Department of Justice literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”The federal Crime Victims Act guarantees Cooper-Jones’ “right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding involving a plea offer,” Merritt said, and she intends to exercise that right at Monday’s proceeding.
Trial drew national attention
The three defendants were convicted for their roles in Arbery’s murder, which occurred on February 23, 2020. The McMichaels told police they believed Arbery was a suspect in recent burglaries in the neighborhood and followed him. Bryan, a neighbor, got in a vehicle and also pursued Arbery as he was jogging.Travis McMichael exited the vehicle after catching up to Arbery, and fatally shot Arbery as the two struggled over McMichael’s shotgun.The McMichaels were arrested on May 7, 2020, days after video of the shooting surfaced, and Bryan was taken into custody two weeks later. The subsequent trial drew national attention as the circumstances surrounding the killing were seeped in race, video evidence and the rights and limitations of self-defense using firearms.The case dovetailed with the killings of three Black people — Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta — reigniting concerns over racial injustice and prompting civil unrest nationwide.Much was also made about the investigation prior to the trial — which featured multiple prosecutor recusals — as well as tactics utilized by some of the defendants’ defense attorneys during the trial that were questioned by legal experts and court observers. The presence of civil rights leaders in the gallery during the trial, such as Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson brought condemnations and accusations of undue influence from at least one defense attorney, and another defense attorney’s comments on Arbery’s toenails drew heavy criticism from Arbery’s family and others as offensive. CNN’s Alta Spells and Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.