Springfield man who gave David 'Joey' Pedersen gun used in 2011 killing spree sentenced

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David "Joey" Pedersen talks with public defender Benjamin Wirtschafter as co-defendant, Holly Grigsby, looks on during a 2011 appearance in Yuba County Superior Court in Marysville, Calif.

(The Associated Press)

The man who provided white supremacist David "Joey" Pedersen with the gun used to kill three of four people in a 2011 crime spree offered his apologies to the victims' families, saying he feels the weight of the murders.

"Even though I wasn't involved in the murders ... this is something that will burden me for the rest of my life," Corey Eugene Wyatt, 29, said Tuesday in federal court at a sentencing hearing. He said he is losing his freedom, his son and his wife because of his poor decisions, but pledged to build a life as a productive citizen when he is released in the future.

"It's going to be a tough road," he said, "but I'm going to try the best that I can."

Wyatt's words came just before U.S. District Judge Garr King sentenced him to seven years and five months in prison for transferring a firearm to Pedersen, a known felon, and for being an accessory after the fact to the interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. The sentence was the term recommended by the prosecutors and defense as part of a binding plea agreement.

Wyatt's sentencing clears the first hurdle in a complicated three-way deal designed to resolve a flawed criminal case against Pedersen and send the 34-year-old to prison for two life terms.

The deal requires judges overseeing the cases against Wyatt, Pedersen and Kimberly Scott Wyatt – Corey Wyatt's wife, who bought the gun – to accept the plea agreements and prison terms jointly recommended by the prosecutors and defense lawyers. If a judge rejects any of the deals, then all the parties are no longer bound by the agreements.

Pedersen's co-defendant, Holly Ann Grigsby, pleaded guilty in March and is not a part of the three-way deal. She is to be sentenced next week for her role in the killings of Pedersen's father and stepmother in Washington state, 19-year-old Cody Faye Myers in Oregon, and 53-year-old Reginald Alan Clark in California in September and October 2011.

For Corey Wyatt, the seven-year, five-month term is about half what prosecutors were prepared to seek under a previous agreement. But prosecutors agreed to slash the recommended term to secure a guilty plea from Pedersen and to halt Pedersen's request for sanctions against the prosecution team for failures in the investigation.

Although Pedersen admitted the four killings – and has already been sentenced to two life terms in Washington state for his father's and stepmother's murders – the federal case was at risk of unraveling after defense attorneys exposed serious flaws in the investigation.

Witnesses in an April hearing testified that lead detective Dave Steele from the Oregon State Police failed to log boxes worth of evidence, failed to turn over evidence for as long as two years. The Multnomah County Detention Center also opened confidential legal mail and handed over the private legal calls to Steele, which defense attorneys argued compromised his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

And the defense challenged the U.S. Attorney's Office, saying its prosecutors should have notified them when they learned that their prosecution team had received copies of legal communications.

As part of the three-way plea deal, Pedersen agreed to drop his push for sanctions against the prosecution team. He pleaded guilty in April to two counts of carjacking resulting in death and is to be sentenced in August.

At Wyatt's sentencing, the Springfield man said he did not know that Pedersen and Grigsby were going to murder anyone. Wyatt, a convicted felon who has served about 10 years behind bars, also said he was ill-prepared for life after his release, noting he had spent about five years in solitary confinement with no help making the transition to freedom.

But he admitted helping Pedersen, whom he met in prison, according to the sentencing memorandum by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker. After a July 2011 camping trip together, Wyatt had his wife buy a 9 mm handgun, which he gave to Pedersen, the filings state. Pedersen wanted a gun for robberies to amass money and other guns for a white supremacist "revolution," she wrote.

Pedersen used the gun in September 2011 to rob a coffee shop in Portland and in an attempted carjacking, the court documents state. Later that month, Pedersen and Grigsby went to Washington where they fatally shot Pedersen's father, Red Pedersen and slashed the throat of Pedersen's stepmother, Leslie "DeeDee" Pedersen.

They drove Red Pedersen's Jeep back to Springfield where they sought the Wyatts' help in getting rid of the vehicle. Red Pedersen's body was still inside, the court filings state.

The Wyatts also took Pedersen and Grigsby shopping for camping gear, knowing they were on the run, the filings state, before dropping them off at Pioneer Mountain Loop east of Newport.

Pedersen and Grigsby went on to kill Myers and Clark, but were arrested before they could carry out a planned killing spree targeting Jewish individuals in the Sacramento area, the memorandum states.

Wyatt's sentence is at the low end of the range set forth by federal sentencing guidelines, Shoemaker said. In filings, she urged the judge to accept the plea, noting that the three-way deal will result in savings to the justice system and closure for the victims' families.

Wyatt's wife is scheduled to be sentenced on July 30, and Pedersen's sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 4.

-- Helen Jung

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