A district judge on Tuesday rejected a Creston man’s request to back out of a plea agreement stemming from the shooting death of his girlfriend.
Robert Kowalski, 47, who initially pleaded not guilty, entered an Alford plea Jan. 12 to mitigated deliberate homicide for the March shooting of 45-year-old Lorraine Kay Morin. In such a plea, the defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to obtain a guilty verdict.
Kowalski asked District Judge Katherine Curtis last week if he could withdraw the plea, saying defense attorneys Vicki Frazier and Gregory Hood “rushed” him into striking a deal with prosecutors.
Curtis said Tuesday that Kowalski’s claims were “not credible.”
“The Court finds incredible the Defendant’s claim that his testimony at the change of plea hearing was not truthful because he was ‘coached’ by Mr. Hood and Ms. Frazier to simply ‘agree with everything’ and, by implication, lie to the Court,” Curtis wrote.
In the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss deliberate homicide charges and recommend Kowalski receive 50 years in prison, with 10 years suspended and no restrictions on his parole.
The agreement still would allow Kowalski to withdraw his plea and go to trial if Curtis imposes a stiffer penalty than what was agreed upon by prosecutors. Kowalski’s sentencing is scheduled for March 12.
Morin, a mother of six, was shot in the face during an alcohol-fueled argument at her house near Columbia Falls on March 16. Prosecutors say that after the shooting, Kowalski fled to his house, where he was arrested the next day after a 31-hour armed standoff with authorities.
Extensive similarities between the Flathead County shooting and Kowalski’s 1996 shooting of another woman in Alaska have prompted cold-case prosecutors to review their case against him. Kowalski, who told investigators that the Alaska shooting was an accident, never was charged in the killing.