The previous Stoughton cop accused of grooming Sandra Birchmore whereas she was a minor after which killing her when she was pregnant desires his trial heard exterior of Massachusetts.
Attorneys for Matthew Farwell, who faces federal costs of killing a witness or sufferer in Birchmore’s dying and one other cost for killing the unborn child, have been granted time to file a memorandum arguing for a change of venue for his trial.
The attorneys wrote Thursday that their movement “addresses the voluminous pretrial publicity in his case, the prejudicial impact of such publicity on a potential jury pool in the District of Massachusetts, and the law and constitutional rights requiring a transfer of venue.”
Chief U.S. District Decide Denise J. Casper accepted the request for time to write down their movement.
Federal authorities arrested and charged Farwell with Birchmore’s killing in August of final 12 months. Prosecutors final month unsealed a brand new indictment charging him with the dying of the unborn child, which in accordance with prosecutors Birchmore excitedly instructed him was his. Prosecutors say the newborn’s gestational age was between eight and 10 weeks.
Farwell is scheduled to be arraigned on the brand new cost subsequent Friday, although the defendant won’t be current as his attorneys have waived his look.
Authorities say that Farwell met Birchmore when as a baby she joined the Police Explorers Academy, a youth program run by the Stoughton Police Division for which Farwell taught.
He rapidly moved into creating a relationship with the woman 12 years his junior, in accordance with the indictment, and that relationship turned sexual when Birchmore skipped a college occasion to lose her virginity to Farwell when she was 16 years outdated.
Birchmore realized she was pregnant in late December 2020, a few month earlier than she would die. She reached out to Farwell to inform him the excellent news, however the 6-foot-4 police officer reacted in anger.
Prosecutors say that Farwell on Feb. 1, 2021, entered Birchmore’s Canton condominium and strangled her to dying as he knew she was weeks pregnant together with his youngster. He then staged the condominium to make it appear to be Birchmore had dedicated suicide.
State authorities dominated the dying a suicide however then-U.S. Legal professional Joshua Levy mentioned that federal prosecutors had retained their very own examiner who disagreed with that ruling.
Whereas Massachusetts doesn’t have a dying penalty, Farwell can face such a penalty in federal courtroom. Farwell added dying penalty protection specialist Kimberly Stevens to his workforce in June.
Stoughton Police Division through AP
Matthew Farwell (Stoughton Police Division through AP)
