Attorney general fights Pender effort for new trial

Attorney General Greg Zoeller’s office is fighting Sarah Jo Pender’s efforts to win a new trial on her 2002 conviction for double murder.

In a motion before the Indiana Court of Appeals, Pender claims the state withheld crucial evidence during her trial when a jury convicted her for the shotgun slayings of roommates Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman in 2000. A judge sentenced her to 110 years in prison.

Several legal experts say Pender was wrongly convicted of double murder based on recently discovered evidence that should have been given to her defense lawyer.

In an 18-page document filed Monday, Deputy Attorney General Andrew Kobe argues that the disputed evidence — a list of names and a letter penned by a witness for the prosecution — was not all that important to Pender’s defense.

“I disagree with them on the importance of the documents, but hell, who am I to know. I only tried the case,” said Larry Sells, retired Marion County deputy prosecutor.

Sells, who at the sentencing described Pender as the “female Charles Manson,” announced last summer he now thinks he built the murder case atop dubious testimony from Marion County Jail inmate Floyd Pennington.

Pender’s boyfriend, Richard Hull is serving a 90-year prison sentence for the murders.

Pender, who purchased the shotgun and helped Hull cover up the crime, admits she’s guilty of assisting a criminal. But the maximum sentence on that crime would have been served years ago.

Cara Wieneke, Pender’s appelate lawyer, declined comment because she had not yet reviewed the attorney general’s brief.

Pender’s trial lawyer could have found the Pennington documents by “due diligence,” Kobe argued. He also said the documents would have been inadmissible and that the jury knew Pennington was cooperating with authorities out of self interest.

Kobe wrote that “the documents were not suppressed by the state, nor would the two documents have any effect on the trial.”

Call Star reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @VicRyc.