Trending Topics

Inmate convicted in Pa. CO’s murder won’t be at sentencing

Defense attorneys for Jesse Con-ui say he plans to appear by video from the supermaximum security prison

Associated Press

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — An inmate convicted of murdering a guard at a federal prison in Pennsylvania won’t return to court when he’s formally sentenced to life in prison next month.

Defense attorneys for 40-year-old Jesse Con-ui say he plans to appear by video from the supermaximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where he’s already serving 25 years to life for a gang initiation murder in Arizona in 2002.

Con-ui was convicted by a federal court jury in Wilkes-Barre in June for stabbing 34-year-old guard Eric Williams more than 200 times in February 2013 at the Canaan federal prison in northeastern Pennsylvania. The same jury balked at imposing the death penalty, meaning Con-ui automatically will receive a life prison term.

He’ll be formally sentenced Oct. 12 by a federal judge in Wilkes-Barre.