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Wassenaar guilty in standoff
Prison hostage-taker guilty on 19 counts, faces 16 life sentences. In the end, Ricky Wassenaar held the courtroom at bay four times longer than he held the guard tower. This time the ending was predictable. After a scant five hours of deliberation, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury brought back 19 guilty verdicts out of 20 criminal counts stemming from his January 2004 siege at a state prison near Buckeye. The prosecutor in the case said Wassenaar faces 16 mandatory life sentences when he goes back before the judge for sentencing June 3. "Worst verdicts I've ever seen," Wassenaar said as sheriff's deputies led him from the courtroom. But his victims thought otherwise. "It's the ultimate closure," said Lois Fraley, the correctional officer who was held hostage for 15 days by Wassenaar and his accomplice, Steven Coy. Both men were convicted of sexually assaulting her. "He's out of my mind now. He's not holding me hostage anymore," she said. Wassenaar, 42, was serving his second sentence on armed robbery charges when he and his cellmate, Coy, 41, fought their way out of the prison unit's kitchen on Jan. 18, 2004 and took Fraley and correctional Officer Jason Auch hostage. During the siege, the longest in U.S. history, Wassenaar told negotiators by phone that he and Coy were trying to escape. They surrendered Feb. 1, 2004, after reaching agreement with negotiators that they would be transferred to prisons out of state, closer to their families. Coy pleaded guilty to several counts, was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences and transferred to a prison in Maine. Wassenaar expects to be transferred to Ohio. During his trial he maintained that he was not trying to escape, but rather, trying to draw attention to his repeatedly denied requests to be transferred to a prison in the Midwest. He was found guilty of 10 counts of dangerous or deadly assault by a prisoner; five counts of kidnapping; and one count each of escape, promoting prison contraband, sexual assault and aggravated assault. The jury also found aggravating factors for most of the counts that will allow Judge Warren Granville to impose harsher sentences. Wassenaar was found not guilty of attempted second-degree murder for allegedly shooting at a correctional officer. It was one of the counts that Wassenaar had claimed he hadn't committed. Jeannette Gallagher, the tough-talking raspy-voiced prosecutor who handled the case, was "absolutely thrilled" after the verdict. "When I went out to the scene Feb. 1 (2004, when the siege ended), I didn't realize what it would take to get to here," she said. "I won't volunteer for any more prison cases." Then she spoke out on behalf of the correctional officers listed in the counts against Wassenaar, many of whom attended the verdict. "All of the victims in this case were just doing their job, trying to protect the rest of us from the likes of Ricky Wassenaar," she said. One of those officers, Lt. William Jones, said that he was shaking as he walked into the courtroom, and when he walked out, he said, "I wanted to bust out at him, but that's not what my job description said to do." Wassenaar's sister Renae Olszewski, 40, who came from Michigan to sit through the eight-week trial was not surprised at most of the verdicts. "The only thing is my disbelief of the sexual assault," she said. "I can't believe they had enough proof. I know he's not guilty of that." The jury thought otherwise, and so did Gallagher. The jury members declined interviews. "I'm glad they saw through this," Fraley said. "It's a beautiful day." |
