Marine Wife Convicted Of Killing Husband For Fake Tits Cleared
Original story last year:
USA Today: Wife who ‘partied like a rock star’ convicted of murder
Cynthia Sommer, 33, who was accused of poisoning her Marine husband with arsenic to cash in on his $250,000 life insurance policy, was convicted of murder today in San Diego.
Sgt. Todd Sommer, 23, died in February 2002. Afterward, Sommer “partied like a rock star,” prosecutor Laura Gunn said during a court hearing, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Cynthia Sommer used much of the money “for breast enhancement surgery and to throw wild parties,” the newspaper adds. She also got engaged to another Marine.
Today’s Story Of Her Exoneration And Release:
SAN DIEGO - A woman once convicted of killing her Marine husband with arsenic to pay for breast implants was cleared Thursday after new tests showed no traces of poison.
Prosecutors who were preparing for Cynthia Sommer’s second trial found that previously untested samples of Marine Sgt. Todd Sommer’s tissue showed no arsenic. Earlier tests of his liver, presented at the woman’s first trial, found levels 1,020 times above normal.
A recently retained government expert speculated that the earlier samples were contaminated, prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in San Diego Superior Court. The expert said he found the initial results “very puzzling” and “physiologically improbable.”
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis told reporters there was no proof of contamination but offered no other explanation. She said she didn’t know how the tissue might have been contaminated.
“We had an expert who said it was arsenic and no reason to doubt that evidence,” Dumanis said. “The bottom line was, ‘Was there arsenic in Mr. Sommer causing his death?’ Our results showed that there was.”
Freed after more than two years
Sommer was released from jail Thursday night after two years and four months’ incarceration in suburban Santee. She smiled as she walked toward her attorney’s Jaguar.
“Hi, honey. I love you,” she told her daughter on her cell phone. “I can’t wait to see you. I miss you.”
Sommer was granted a new trial after her conviction in January 2007 on first-degree murder. A judge ruled in November that she had received ineffective representation from her former attorney.
At her trial, prosecutors argued that Sommer used her husband’s life insurance to pay for breast implants and pursue a more luxurious lifestyle.
Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said he felt the evidence was contaminated. “We’ve said that all along,” he told reporters outside the courthouse.
Bloom accused the district attorney of “gross negligence.”
“The next time she decides to charge someone with murder in the first degree maybe she should call someone first,” Bloom said.
‘It goes to show you … ’
Her former attorney, Robert Udell, said he “never expected this ending.”
“Just like I said from day one, it made no sense,” Udell said. “It goes to show you there are innocent people in prison.”
Superior Court Judge Peter Deddeh ruled last year that Udell erred by allowing prosecutors to introduce evidence about Sommer’s partying immediately after her husband’s death.
The former attorney has admitted to tactical errors, including failing to call witnesses to adequately rebut prosecutors’ theories about the source of the arsenic.
Sommer had faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if the judge had denied a retrial.
Todd Sommer, 23, was in top condition when he collapsed and died Feb. 18, 2002, at the couple’s home on the Marine Corps’ Miramar base in San Diego. The couple married in 1999.
Sommer’s co-workers testified during the trial that the widow didn’t grieve quietly in the weeks after the death. She got her breasts enlarged and, witnesses said, joined wet T-shirt contests at nightclubs and had casual sex with other military men.
Prosecutors said Sommer wanted a better lifestyle than she could afford on the $1,700 monthly salary her husband brought home and saw the $250,000 military life insurance policy as a way to “set herself free.”
Sommer, who moved to Florida after the death, cried on the stand at her trial, dabbing her eyes as she recounted her husband’s last moments. She said during cross-examination that she hadn’t been able to envision a future with him.
(AP)
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I hope her (rip)husband ends up pulling post on the Pearly Gates when she comes a knockin….
April 18th, 2008 at 12:46 amcapital crime demands capital punishment
April 18th, 2008 at 3:29 amI don’t know guys, the DA here in San Diego is such a hack. I’m not sure I can trust many of the convictions in San Diego anymore. DA Dumanis is so bound by political correctness/expediency the she’d indict Mother Goose if she thought it’d advance her career. I say again She’s a hack!!
Cynthia Summers may be a piece of trash but I’m not sure she’s a murderer. The latest evidence coming out doesn’t support the idea she poisoned her husband.
Just my never to be humble opinion
April 18th, 2008 at 5:20 amPerfect example of how jacked-up the justice system is. Better lawyer = better results (right O.J.?).
The truth is irrelevant…
April 18th, 2008 at 6:27 amWTF?!?
I mean, IF I killed my husband to get the money for new boobs I sure as hell would NOT be wearing a sweatshirt and pulling my greasy hair back in a fucking ponytail!
Gimmie those boobs!
You DON’T deserve them!
April 18th, 2008 at 6:48 amNO WAY!
April 18th, 2008 at 7:13 amJust when you think you’ve seen the worst classless act on earth, yet another surpasses.
April 18th, 2008 at 7:44 amGo to jail. Present bootie.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:52 amWhat a fooked up system. So how did the dude die? This needs further investigating. If you ask me the bitch just got away with murder.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:57 amMy daughter works Los Colinas where Sommers was being held. She said Sommers is a worthless piece of human debris so I have no love for her. I would remake the point I made earlir that our DA, Bonnie Dumanis is flippin incompetant!! The evidence, as it is now coming out is all the tissue evidence from her dead husband shows no signs of poisoning, as was alleged. In Sommers trial the DA’s office said Sommers poisoned her husband for his life insurance.Then partied for days and tried to breed most of Camp Pendelton. Now they say Sgt. Sommers was not poisoned!! I think DA Dumanis railroaded this dumb broad in a high profile case because it was the easy way to go.
Looks like the DA’s office screwed this all up and now they’ve got to fix it….Good Luck Ms Dumanis.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:03 pmMy daughter works Los Colinas where Sommers was being held. She said Sommers is a worthless piece of human debris so there is no love lost for her. I would remake the point I made earlier that our DA, Bonnie Dumanis is flippin incompetant!! The evidence, as it is now coming out is all the tissue evidence from her dead husband shows no signs of poisoning, as was alleged. In Sommers trial the DA’s office said Sommers poisoned her husband for his life insurance.Then partied for days and tried to breed most of Camp Pendelton. Now they say Sgt. Sommers was not poisoned!! Don’t know what killed him now. I think DA Dumanis railroaded this dumb broad in a high profile case because it was the easy way to go.
Looks like the DA’s office screwed this all up and now they’ve got to fix it….Good Luck Ms Dumanis.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pmThis article and comments aside…Pat, your headline…”Marine Wife Convicted Of Killing Husband For Fake Tits Cleared”…
kinda cold…is this a case and or proof that,
April 18th, 2008 at 9:03 pm“you can take the boy out of Hollywood, but you can’t take the Hollywood out of the boy”?
I watched this trial everyday… allday. The simple truth is she should have never been put in prison anyways. The tried so hard but could never find one bit of evidence that she was involved. It is against everything America stands for to convict someone and give them life in prison because of an insurance policy and she partied and of course the breast…. If something happenend to my husband I would probably stay drunk also… maybe she truley missed him and was extremely desperate for male attention and love. People act strangly when they have lost someone they love. She has been done a horrible disservice by the American court system. If I was her I wouls sue…sue…sue! Good Luck Cynthia!!
April 24th, 2008 at 6:26 am