A Shawnee County District Court judge on Thursday rescheduled a sentencing hearing to Nov. 22 at 2 p.m. for Amber Peery, a Topekan convicted Aug. 15 of crimes related to the October 2022 crash deaths of three Topeka Girl Scouts .
Peery, 34, did not appear at Thursday’s hearing, where she was represented by attorney Vanessa Riebli and the accuser was represented by Shawnee County Deputy District Attorney Will Manly, court records said.
These records showed that District Judge Jessica Heinen did not address any other outstanding motions related to Peery’s case during Friday’s hearing, which she had scheduled last week after Peery’s attorneys requested a stay of her sentencing and the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office Attorney Mike Kagay had no objection.
Peery remained an inmate Friday at the Shawnee County Jail, where records show he was being held without bond.
What other motions are being considered?
Peery’s attorneys asked for a postponement of sentencing on September 26, saying they needed more time to hear more than 70 recordings of phone conversations and view more than 20 videos taken of Peery talking to various people in the prison talk.
They said Kagay’s office had shared them with them, but they had not been able to open the files involved and needed to review all the documents to be properly prepared for sentencing.
Peery’s attorneys said they also needed more time to investigate the possible existence of a second video of the crash, which had not been provided to them. Jurors at Peery’s trial were shown forward-facing video of the crash, taken from the semi-trailer driven by Robert Russell, 72, of Huntsville, Alabama, which struck an SUV driven by Peery.
Court records show Heinen has not yet ruled on requests from Peery’s attorneys asking for her to be granted bond and given a new trial, and by Manly asking Heinen to deny Peery’s request to allow her confession, as evidence for conviction. hearing, a petition on change.org signed by more than 680 people asking for mercy on her behalf.
What happened during the crash?
Three Girl Scouts were killed and two others were injured when a semi-trailer driven by Russell struck the driver’s side of the van Peery was driving at 9:07 a.m. Oct. 8, 2022, on the Kansas Turnpike near Auburn.
Killed were Laila El Azri Ennassari and Kylie Lunn, both 9, and Brooklyn Peery, 8. Brooklyn was the daughter of Amber Peery.
Peery and her two other passengers – her daughter Carrington Peery, then 5, and Gabriella Ponomarez, then 9 – were injured but survived.
The crash occurred when Amber Peery attempted to make a U-turn to go through a gap in the barrier wall on the Turnpike while en route to a Girl Scout event in Tonganoxie.
Amber Peery was part of a three-vehicle caravan, for which the two other drivers had already made a U-turn through the opening of a toll road barrier.
Jurors found Amber Peery guilty on Aug. 15 of three felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, two misdemeanor counts of aggravated battery and one count of failure to maintain one lane and making a U-turn on a highway.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared in Topeka Capital-Journal: Woman convicted in Topeka Girl Scout deaths gets new sentencing date
