Staff file photo / Ed Runyan An attorney for Saun Peterson has asked that Peterson be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the 2023 shooting death of 15-year-old Amya Monserrat.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito has set an 11 a.m. April 15 hearing to hear arguments on whether Saun M. Peterson, 23, should be allowed to withdraw the guilty pleas he entered in 2023 to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault charges in the 2023 shooting death of 15-year-old Amya Monserrat.

Peterson asked to withdraw the pleas in a recent motion in his case, which also has seen Peterson refuse to testify fully against his co-defendant, Danyo Sellers, 19, who was later found not guilty on all counts during a trial.

Amya was shot to death outside of the tavern during a birthday party for another girl, and Sellers was tried for murder and other offenses. Prosecutors said Sellers fired a gun into a crowd of people outside of the tavern from a car driven by Peterson.

Prosecutors said during Sellers’ trial that the conflict apparently was prompted by Peterson driving multiple times around the tavern with Sellers and two other people in the car and people in the parking lot having guns.

At some point, both Sellers and people in the parking lot started firing their guns, resulting in Amya being shot while trying to reach her mother’s car in the parking lot, prosecutors said. Amya died almost immediately.

Peterson reached an agreement to testify to Sellers being in the car and firing the gun toward the crowd. But when Peterson took the stand in February, he answered a couple of questions and then invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and would not say more about whether Sellers was in the car.

Prosecutors admitted during the Sellers trial that nobody can say for sure whose bullet killed Amya. But the law allowed Sellers to be convicted in her murder because he was allegedly committing felonious assault at the time she was killed and his conduct was allegedly part of the reason she died.

Peterson’s attorney, James Wise, filed a motion March 23 asking D’Apolito to allow Peterson to rescind his guilty pleas and have his case “returned to the trial docket,” meaning that Peterson could then reach a different plea agreement or go to trial.

Peterson is set for sentencing April 15. But the 11 a.m. hearing on the motion to rescind Peterson’s plea agreement will happen first. Depending on the outcome of that hearing, Peterson might still be sentenced April 15.

The plea Peterson reached in 2023 called for him to get a prosecutor recommendation of 10 to 12 1/2 years in prison. He was never sentenced while Sellers’ case was pending. D’Apolito does not have to follow the prosecutor’s recommendation on Peterson’s sentence, and could order more or less prison time. Peterson has been in the Mahoning County jail since May 2023.

Wise’s filing states that D’Apolito can allow Peterson to rescind his guilty plea and cited a 1992 Ohio Supreme Court ruling indicating that such a request “should be freely and liberally granted.” It states that to rule in that manner, the defendant must have a “legitimate basis” for the request and the judge must hold a hearing.

The Peterson filing states that the reason Peterson decided not to testify was that he was “pressured” at the time he reached the plea agreement “to make a statement that (prosecutors) requested.”

The filing adds that Peterson “also has a defense in this matter, as he was only in the area because he was picking up his sister, who was at the party where the incident occurred.”

PROSECUTOR FILING

Prosecutors have stated that Peterson promised in 2023 that he would testify that he saw people “waving guns” at the car Peterson was driving the night, and it caused Peterson to begin to “drive aggressively.”

Peterson also said he would testify that Sellers was in the car, that Sellers “began shooting with his hand over the top of the roof” of the car and that Peterson could hear gunfire coming from the gun Sellers was holding.

Assistant Mahoning County Prosecutor Katherine Jones filed a written response March 26 to Wise’s request for Peterson to rescind his plea. In it, Jones recited nine factors a Seventh District Court of Appeals ruling said judges should follow when deciding whether to allow a defendant to rescind a guilty plea.

Jones focused much of her analysis on whether the prosecution will be “prejudiced” by allowing the plea agreement to be rescinded, meaning unfairly harmed or disadvantaged by a decision or evidence.

Jones stated that the state’s case against Peterson “will suffer significant prejudice if the defendant is allowed to withdraw his plea” because “the state relied on (Peterson’s) agreement to truthfully testify against (Sellers).”

Jones stated that Peterson “was called to testify at trial, where, after committing perjury, he ultimately invoked the Fifth Amendment mid-testimony, resulting in a mistrial.” Sellers was tried again the following week and was found not guilty.

She added that the state “has already suffered prejudice in the form of a compromised prosecution of (Sellers) and lost strategic positioning.”

She stated that in talking to jurors after they found Sellers not guilty of murder and other offenses, they suggested that if Peterson had testified that Sellers shot at the crowd as he said he would, “the verdict might have been guilty rather than not guilty.”

Jones stated that allowing Peterson to withdraw his guilty pleas to involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault, improper handling of firearms in a motor vehicle and obstructing justice “would compound that prejudice and reward (Peterson’s) breach of the agreement.”

Furthermore, allowing Peterson’s guilty pleas to be rescinded would “prejudice” the state in other ways, such as the assistant prosecutor in the Peterson case “being engaged in another case” and D’Apolito having to “interrupt and rearrange (his) calendar to try a case that had been amicably handled.”

Another factor Jones noted was that Peterson had “highly capable” legal representation “throughout the proceedings, particularly during pretrial negotiations and trial preparation.” His attorney, Michael Kivlighan, “negotiated a life sentence into a term of years, and not many at that,” Jones argued.

The Jones filing added that the timing of Peterson’s request to withdraw his guilty pleas casts doubt on his suggestion that he was pressured to enter the guilty plea. He reached two written agreements with prosecutors between November of 2023 and February 2026, and “at no point throughout that time did (Peterson) complain about” being pressured or being confused about what he was doing.

Peterson’s motion to rescind his plea was “not a prompt reconsideration. It is a strategic reaction to unfavorable consequences.” She noted that recorded Mahoning County jail calls indicated that Peterson’s “motivation is rooted in avoiding the consequences of being labeled a snitch.”

Jones added that Peterson’s request to rescind his plea agreement also may have been influenced by the “collapse of the benefit he hoped to receive from” his cooperation with prosecutors by testifying.