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UNC SUV Jihadi pleads guilty to attempted murder
HILLSBOROUGH - Mohammed Taheri-Azar pleaded guilty this morning to nine counts of attempted first-degree murder charges stemming from a March 2006 incident in which he drove a rented SUV into a crowd of people on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. As part of a plea bargain, prosecutors dropped nine counts of aggravated felonious assault charges.According to a plea transcript, Superior Court Judge Carl Fox indicated in a pre-trial conference with attorneys that he would be willing to consolidate the nine charges into two attempted murder charges for sentencing purposes. Taheri-Azar will likely face 21 to 33 years in prison. Fox scheduled his sentencing for Aug. 26 at 9:30 a.m. Because Taheri-Azar has been unpredictable with his legal representation, Woodall wanted to separate the sentencing from this hearing so victims could be sure Taheri-Azar was going to plead guilty before arranging their schedules to appear in court. Woodall said he expects seven of the nine victims will testify about their physical and emotional injuries at the sentencing hearing. Over the past couple of years, Taheri-Azar has tried to fire his court-appointed attorney, been committed to a mental institution and asked to be released so he could move to California to work for his father. Taheri-Azar was released from Dorothea Dix Hospital last month and is in custody at North Carolina Central Prison. Posted by: tu3031 2008-08-13 |
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