Post by WaTcHeR on Apr 18, 2006 9:30:22 GMT -5
Officer Mattheh Owens
04/18/2006 - NOME -- Former Nome police officer Matthew Owens, still protesting his innocence, was sentenced Monday to a total of 101 years for the murder of 19-year-old Sonya Ivanoff.
Officer Owens, 30, bucked his lawyer's advice not to address the court before sentencing.
"I pleaded innocent from Day One, and that's not gonna change. I am not guilty," he said.
"I know that the family suffers, but I'm not the reason for their suffering," officer Owens said.
A jury in Kotzebue found Owens guilty in December of first-degree murder in the Aug. 11, 2003, death of Ivanoff, an office worker who had moved to Nome from her home village of Unalakleet about a year before she died.
Superior Court Judge Ben Esch gave officer Owens 99 years for the murder.
Esch gave him two additional years for evidence tampering -- for stealing a police car in an attempt to divert the murder investigation away from himself.
Owens, a Nome police officer at the time, was accused of picking Ivanoff up in his police cruiser, then killing her on the outskirts of town with a single shot to the head.
The victim's father, Larry Ivanoff, argued Monday that Owens' parole should be restricted so he could never be released from prison.
"My whole family still has a tough time with this," he said. "My wife is still crying on my shoulder. A person who has done such an awful thing should never be allowed to be in public again."
Owens will be eligible for parole in 34 years.
During Monday's proceedings in a densely packed courtroom, prosecutor Rick Svobodny pointed to the sentence required in Alaska for murdering a police officer.
"If you kill a police officer you get 99 years," Svobodny said. "For a police officer on active duty, to commit the worst crime, it should be the same sentence, and he should get 99 years of incarceration."
Svobodny said Owens was not a cop gone bad but was bad to begin with, using his position of authority to meet women, entice them into his patrol car and coerce them into having sex with him.
Owens' public defender, Steven Wells, angrily responded that his client didn't commit the crime and denounced Svobodny for speculating on his client's nature.
Wells said he would appeal.
After the courtroom cleared, the victim's tearful family, friends and supporters silently hugged.
"I think finally we can move on," said the victim's mother, Maggie Ivanoff. "I'm thankful that no other family has to go through what we went through with him."
At the trial, witnesses testified they saw Sonya Ivanoff getting into a police car early on the morning she disappeared. Owens was one of two officers on duty at the time.
Her body was found at the end of an access road near gold dredges about three miles from downtown. She had been shot once.
Alaska State Troopers eventually took over the investigation, and Owens was arrested in October 2003.
At his first trial, a Nome jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The retrial was moved to Kotzebue, where jurors found him guilty after about three days of deliberation.
The city of Nome last year settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed against it by the Ivanoff family. Terms have not been disclosed.