On Friday morning, former Box Butte County Public Defender Jon Worthman was sentenced in a case where he was found guilty of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver.
Prior to sentencing, Judge Richard Birch conducted a hearing on Worthman’s motion for a new trial. According to the motion, the request for a new trial was based upon a number of factors, including alleged credibility issues relating to Jeffrey Lujan, who served as a witness against Worthman at his trial.
“That in the three months since the close of evidence in this case, STATE has charged the witness upon whose testimony STATE predicated this case, Jeffrey Lujan, with four additional felonies directly implicating Lujan’s truthfulness,” the motion states.
At the hearing, Worthman’s attorney, Maren Chaloupka, argued that Lujan’s credibility should be called into question regarding the new felony cases, as well as other cases expected to be resolved through a cooperation agreement with the state. She said his actions were not in line with the agreement, noting that the agreement was still in effect.
“The State of Nebraska has continued to tolerate these conditions and offenses by Mr. Lujan and continued to allow him to do close to whatever he wants to do, as long as he continues to help the state make an example of Jon Worthman, because apparently, that was something that the state decided was important, even though the state was not able to find a single piece of evidence that Jon Worthman ever distributed cocaine to any identifiable person,” said Chaloupka.
Chaloupka accused the state of reducing nine felony charges and 11 misdemeanor charges against Lujan to one felony and three misdemeanors, in exchange for testimony against Worthman.
“And for what? For what? Did Mr. Lujan take down the Sinaloa Cartel? Did he bring in a murderer? Did he break a conspiracy and then get 10 violent criminals off the street? He did not. What Mr. Lujan delivered in exchange for all of his own criminality that the State of Nebraska has excused, was a conviction on one single felony that has no fangs, no tentacles, no connections to any other criminal enterprise whatsoever. There is no evidence of a single act of distribution by Mr. Worthman,” Chaloupka said.
“The State of Nebraska calls itself ‘law and order,’ but to get Jon Worthman convicted of one count of buying one ounce of cocaine, that the police packaged and brought to Jeff Lujan’s house, the state has let Jeff Lujan commit nine felonies and 11 misdemeanors, and only hold him accountable for three of those crimes. This is habitual criminal territory. What a trade off,” said Chaloupka.
After hearing comments from prosecutor Doug Warner and a rebuttal from Chaloupka, Judge Birch overruled the motion for a new trial.
“If we waited for (Lujan) to stop committing crimes in order to have this trial, we would probably be waiting for years,” said Judge Birch.
After discussing changes and additions to the pre-sentence investigation, Warner argued for a prisonsentence in the case, describing Worthman’s actions as unacceptable, noting he took advantage of representing Lujan to get cocaine.
“If anyone knows Jeff Lujan, it’s Jon Worthman,” said Warner. “They had a relationship where he represented him.”
Chaloupka argued for Worthman to receive only the mandatory minimum sentence required by the charge: three years in prison. She explained that Worthman’s actions were solely due to addiction, emphasizing there was no evidence that he distributed cocaine to any person in Scotts Bluff County.
“The only motivation evidence that I saw in this trial was Mr. Lujan complaining that Jon would come to his house after midnight, begging for cocaine, ‘all fiend out,’ in Mr. Lujan’s words. In other words, in the throes of addiction, begging for a fix. There was extensive evidence about text messages between Jon and Mr. Lujan in which Jon was telling crazy stories to Mr. Lujan to trick him into giving him free cocaine. Fantasy stuff that even the state, and the lead investigators acknowledge was completely false. Crazy talk between an addict and a dealer,” said Chaloupka.
She explained that there is a degree of shame involved with addicts, which have prevented Worthman from acknowledging a problem. Chaloupka said he has worked to “mitigate harm to other people,” including voluntarily surrendering his law license.
When asked if he had anything to say, Worthman responded, “Your honor, I guess I would just apologize to everyone.”
Judge Birch said the mandatory minimum would be appropriate in this case, noting no prior criminal record, aside from a DUI. He sentenced Worthman to serve three years in prison with credit for two days served.
After the sentencing, Chaloupka indicated she expected an appeal in the case.