Convicted, but not for murder: Farley faces 39 years for lesser charges
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Farley, 32, was convicted on charges of facilitation of murder and robbery and criminal neglect. She faces 24 to 39 years on the three convictions during sentencing.
“She’s in the running for best actress,” District Attorney General Dale Potter told jurors, pointing to Farley’s changing stories and admission from the stand that she had repeatedly lied during the investigation. “She’s trying to sell you swamp land in Florida.”
His statement came after an eye-to-eye confrontation with Farley when she took the stand in her own defense Friday.
With Potter brandishing the tire tool used to kill Johnson outside his home and a large picture of the victim’s body lying in his yard projected on the wall near her, Farley, in tears, refused to look at either, turning her head.
“You don’t want to see the results of your handiwork,” Potter yelled.
Potter went on to tell jurors it was the state’s theory that Farley, along with co-defendant Eric Sullivan, planned to rob Johnson, who was Farley’s confessed “sugar daddy” and that Farley had led the victim outside to be ambushed by Sullivan. Forensic pathologist Dr. John Gerber earlier testified Johnson was hit with 15 blows from the tire tool, some of them fracturing his skull.
Prosecutors told the jury it was Farley’s tire tool used in the attack, noting it was odd that the tire tool would just be lying in the backseat as claimed by the defendant.
“Louie helped me financially and I dated him,” Farley said, confessing to being a prostitute.
Farley also maintained Sullivan acted on his own when he attacked Johnson and she had no prior knowledge of his intentions. Farley said she thought Sullivan was walking to nearby Delores’ Market to make a call, noting she had planned to stay the weekend with Johnson.
However, prosecutors questioned why she had borrowed clothes from a friend earlier, saying she planned to go on vacation to Georgia that weekend. Prosecutors say Farley intended to accompany Sullivan to Georgia to sell meth. Farley said Sullivan was a meth cook.
Farley maintained she screamed for Sullivan to stop the attack and that he then forced her to drive him from the crime scene.
“I screamed for him to stop. I told him, ‘You’re killing him,'” Farley said, noting about $700 to $900 was contained in Johnson’s wallet which she said Sullivan took from Johnson’s pants. “He said, ‘Drive before I give you what I just gave him.'”
Farley testified she lied to lawmen because Sullivan had threatened to harm her and her son if she told on him.
“He told me he’d cut up my son and send his pieces to me,” Farley told jurors.
In response to her claim she was intimidated, Potter asked why, if she was terrified, did she continue writing Sullivan while in jail, and, in one letter, telling him she wanted him to “make love” to her like he had before. Potter also questioned why she wrote a blackmail letter to ex-boyfriend Bill Lewis from jail, threatening to implicate him in the crime by telling lawmen he hired Sullivan to attack Johnson.
Lewis had at first lied for Farley, before changing his story. He helped Farley dispose of the tires on her car because she feared her tire tracks would be found at the crime scene.
Potter also questioned how Johnson’s body wound up several yards from his trailer when Farley said the attack happened right by the door. Potter also questioned why Johnson’s pants were taken off. Farley had no answer, saying he was left lying within a few feet of his house.
“That’s always been a mystery to me,” Farley said of the location of Johnson’s body.
During closing arguments, Potter maintained Farley was an expert in deception, using men to her advantage for years. Specifically, Potter pointed to an incident when Farley was 19, in which she and her ex-husband kidnapped a motel employee. Farley, while admitting to the crime and serving several years in prison for it, maintained her husband made her do it.
In response to Potter’s allegations, defense attorney Bob Peters contended the prosecution had no evidence Farley participating in the killing.
“She’s not on trial for lying or traveling in the wrong circles,” Peters told the jury. “She had no motive to kill Mr. Johnson.”
In light of the conviction on lesser counts, Potter said he intends to seek maximum terms on each count and that he will ask for the court to run her sentences consecutively in light of the crime and her prior criminal record. Sullivan will face trial later this year. Both remain in jail.