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Gaime Appeals Plea Deal Without Attorney

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By DAVID SOMMER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 10, 2007

DADE CITY - Still lacking legal counsel, Kristina Gaime is pressing her challenge of a plea deal that let her avoid a potential life prison term for killing one son and attempting to kill another.

Gaime, 43, is due to be released Oct. 18, 2018, after serving a 20-year term for the April 1999 murder of 6-year-old Mathew Rotell and the attempted murder of Adam Rotell, then 8, according to state Department of Corrections records.

She drugged her sons and then tried to asphyxiate herself and the boys in the family minivan by starting it inside her Land O' Lakes garage and running a hose from the tailpipe to the interior.

A defense team from the Tampa law firm Cohen, Jayson and Foster was able to suppress evidence taken from Gaime's home.

In October 2005, her attorneys struck a plea agreement with prosecutors calling for a 20-year sentence in exchange for Gaime's guilty plea to second-degree murder and attempted murder.

Last year, Gaime accused her attorneys of doing shoddy work.

She asked for new counsel to pursue an appeal of her sentence. In January, that request was denied.

In handwritten documents filed late last week, Gaime initiated her formal appeal without the aid of a new attorney. She reiterated previous contentions that her guilty plea was coerced by a lawyer who had left the firm of Cohen, Jayson and Foster.
Gaime also complained her attorneys failed to have a pizza delivery man and some uneaten pizza tested for drugs or DNA that could prove her innocence.

Without identifying either of the firm's lawyers who were then representing her, Gaime said she was told she could get life in prison if she didn't take the plea deal.

'Attorney was not structural or helpful, just wanted to get done with the case due to no longer working for the law firm that was originally obtained,' Gaime's new motion states.

Barry Cohen, the firm's founder, said it is true that associate Lyann Goudie was preparing to leave the firm at the time the Gaime deal was struck.

However, he said, Goudie and co-counsel Mark Ware were 'passionate about this case' and 'did a hell of a job.'

Gaime, Cohen said, had second thoughts only after starting her prison term.

'Ms. Gaime is a poor, pathetic soul who finds herself in a sad plight: the loss of her children and nothing to live for,' he said. 'It is a sad, sad situation.'

Reporter Jo-Ann Johnston contributed to this report. Reporter David Sommer can be reached at dsommer@tampatrib.com or (727) 815-1087.

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