ALBANY COUNTY — After pleading guilty to vehicular homicide following a crash that killed Berne resident Lisa Sperry and seriously injured two of her sons, Andrew R. Gibson, of Westerlo, is trying to get out of the plea deal he had agreed to so he can contest his case at trial, using a new lawyer, according to the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.  

That motion came shortly before a hearing originally scheduled for later this month to determine whether Gibson will be sentenced as a persistent felon, which would qualify him for a longer sentence. That hearing has been rescheduled for January, according to Darrell Camp, spokesman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office. 

Camp also told The Enterprise that his office has until Oct. 28 to respond.

As she has through each step of the judicial process, Sperry’s sister, Laura Ingleston, expressed general frustration about the overall circumstances, and questioned how Gibson was able to afford an attorney in light of statements he had made at an August court appearance. 

Gibson had previously been represented by attorney James Knox, a partner in the E. Stewart Jones Hacker Murphy law firm, but was assigned a public defender after he told the court that he was “broke.” The identity of his new attorney, who is believed to be in private practice, could not be confirmed. 

Under New York State Law, a defendant who has pleaded guilty but hasn’t yet been sentenced is allowed to double back and instead plead “not guilty” at the discretion of a judge, but “in such event the entire indictment, as it existed at the time of such plea, is restored.” 

After pleading “not guilty” in June 2021 in Westerlo Town Court to two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, one count of second-degree manslaughter, and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault, Gibson settled on a plea deal, pleading guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide.

Although the specifics of Gibson’s motion and circumstances are not known, a memo published last year by former Erie County Court Judge Thomas P. Franczyk suggests that plea reversals can be difficult to receive, and that “mere pleader’s remorse, a post-plea change-of-heart, or unsubstantiated protestations of innocence … will ordinarily not carry the day.”

Instead, courts are interested in arguments that the original plea was somehow invalid due to, for example, “innocence, fraud, mistake, voluntariness, [and] illegal sentence commitment,” Franczyk wrote. 

Also, he notes, a defendant is allowed to reverse a guilty plea when they’ve made a plea deal that included an agreed-upon sentencing that is less than what the court ultimately decides to impose, so long as there were no broken conditions that allow harsher sentencing.

Gibson, who was sentenced for third-degree grand larceny and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, both Class D felonies in 2004, is also facing additional felony charges stemming from his failure to appear for sentencing earlier this year. 

He pleaded “not guilty” to first- and third-degree bail jumping in August. 

In Rensselaer County, where Gibson was recaptured in August following what police described as a “domestic dispute,” Gibson was charged with third-degree criminal mischief, second-degree unlawful imprisonment, second-degree criminal obstruction of breathing, second-degree aggravated harassment, obstruction of governmental administration, and resisting arrest.