Judge refuses to accept plea agreement in Dixon murder case
May 13—State District Judge Jason Lidyard refused to accept a plea agreement Thursday for one of two brothers charged with killing three people near Dixon in 2018, saying he didn't want to be bound to the sentence agreed to by lawyers in the case.
Under the terms of the proposed agreement, Roger Gage, 36, would have pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated battery and the sentences for the murder counts would have run concurrently — meaning with good-time credit he could have been eligible for parole after serving just over 32 years in prison.
Gage and his brother John Powell, 37, were caught on surveillance video shooting April Browne, 42; Abraham Martinez, 36; and Kierin Guillemin, 27, in Browne's home in the small village of Cañoncito, a few miles from Dixon.
A Rio Arriba County jury convicted Powell in September, but he not yet been sentenced.
Prosecutors have said the brothers planned the murders to steal heroin, methamphetamine and money from Browne.
During Powell's trial, jurors saw surveillance footage of Powell and his brother shooting the victims at close range in Browne's home and stealing a safe from her bedroom.
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and Gage's defense attorney Tom Clark both said they were surprised by the judge's decision.
"We were sandbagged," Carmack-Altwies said in a phone interview after Gage's plea hearing. "We sent that signed plea paperwork to Judge Lidyard on April 28. He had two weeks to let us know if he had an issue or questions with it. He did not."
Carmack-Altwies said her office agreed to run the three life sentences concurrently to encourage Gage to take a plea in the case, and as recognition that he was willing to take responsibility for the killings, plus spare the victims' families from having to go through another trial.
"This probably means we have to go to trial and re-traumatize the victims and they have to watch their family members murdered on HD video again," she said. "Because what else can we offer? It was a life sentence. We don't have the death penalty in this state so we can't give a bigger sentence than that."
Clark said the plea would have given Gage some possibility of being released from prison in his lifetime, but if the judge decides to impose multiple life sentences to run consecutively there would be little chance of that.
Gage's case is scheduled to go to trial in June. Powell is set to be sentenced in July.
