Sentencing for Buchheit delayed

The sentencing of a Netawaka resident convicted of a rape charge involving a minor has been delayed pending the appointment of a new defense attorney.

During a scheduled sentencing hearing for 36-year-old Scott Buchheit in Friday in Jackson County District Court, Judge Norbert Marek granted a motion from defense attorney J. Richard Lake of Holton to be dismissed as Buchheit’s counsel and put the sentencing on hold until a new defense attorney was appointed.

Buchheit had filed a motion to withdraw a no contest plea to the rape charge, which stemmed from alleged sexual activities between between August of 2008 and January of 2015 involving a girl who is now 17 years old and was filed minutes before a jury trial on that and other charges was set to begin in February. He was arrested on the charges in February of 2015.

He had filed the motion to withdraw the plea two days after the plea deal was accepted, citing Lake’s "ineffective counsel" and stating that he was "under psychological pressure" to make the deal. Marek continued Buchheit’s case until April 15, at which time a new attorney for Buchheit, if one is appointed by then, will likely present arguments in the case.

Buchheit’s motion to withdraw his original plea asserted prosecutorial misconduct, judicial malfeasance, ineffective defense counsel and “fraud committed within this case.” 

In the motion, he asserted that Jackson County Attorney Shawna Miller “had a direct conflict of interest in this matter” since she had represented Buchheit’s ex-wife, Crystal M. Buchheit Correll, in the Buchheits’ divorce proceeding in 2011, that the “complaining witness” is “a known liar” and that Miller did not produce any physical evidence that he had committed acts described in the criminal case.

In the state’s response to Buchheit’s motion, Miller asserted that Buchheit’s “assertions are without merit” and that the state provided all necessary evidence involved in the case to the defense. She also denied Buchheit’s claims of “prosecutorial misconduct” in the case.

Buchheit faces a sentence of 17 to 19 years in prison if sentencing proceeds, Miller said