A Shawnee County District Court judge Thursday rescheduled a sentencing hearing for 2 p.m. Nov. 22 for Amber Peery, a Topekan convicted Aug. 15 of crimes linked to the October 2022 crash deaths of three Topeka Girl Scouts.
Peery, 34, didn’t appear at Thursday’s hearing, where she was represented by defense attorney Vanessa Riebli and the prosecution was represented by Deputy Shawnee County District Attorney Will Manly, court records said.
Those records indicated District Judge Jessica Heinen didn’t address any other outstanding motions regarding Peery’s case at Friday’s hearing, which she scheduled last week after Peery’s attorneys asked that her sentencing be postponed and Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay’s office didn’t object.
Peery remained an inmate Friday in the Shawnee County Jail, where records said she was being held without bond.
What other motions are being considered?
Peery’s attorneys sought the sentencing postponement Sept. 26, saying they needed more time to be able to hear more than 70 phone call recordings and see more than 20 videos taken of Peery talking to various people at the jail.
They said Kagay’s office had shared those with them but they hadn’t been able to open the files involved, and needed to review all the records to be properly prepared for sentencing.
Peery’s attorneys said they also needed more time to look into the possible existence of a second video of the crash, which hadn’t been provided to them. Jurors at Peery’s trial were shown one 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 yet to rule on motions by Peery’s attorneys asking that a bond for her be set and that she receive a new trial, and by Manly asking Heinen to deny Peery’s request that she be allowed to admit, as evidence for the sentencing hearing, a change.org petition signed by more than 680 people asking for mercy on her behalf.
What happened in the crash?
Three Girl Scouts died and two others were hurt when a semi-trailer driven by Russell struck the rear 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 Amber Peery’s daughter.
Peery and her two other passengers â her daughter Carrington Peery, then 5, and Gabriella Ponomarez, then 9 â were hurt but survived.
The crash occurred as Amber Peery sought to make a U-turn to pass through an opening in the barrier wall on the Turnpike while en route to a Girl Scout event at Tonganoxie.
Amber Peery was part of a three-vehicle caravan, for which the two other drivers had already made U-turns through a turnpike barrier opening.
Jurors found Amber Peery guilty Aug. 15 of three felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, two felony counts of aggravated battery and one count each of failure to maintain a single lane and making a U-turn on an interstate highway.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Woman convicted in Topeka Girl Scout deaths gets new sentencing date
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