Pa. woman accused in bank robbery plot that killed man with collar bomb wants new lawyer again

Pa. collar bomb suspect wants new attorney again

ERIE, Pa. — A Pennsylvania woman accused of masterminding a bank robbery plot that ended with a pizza deliveryman killed by a bomb locked around his neck wants a new attorney again.

In letters filed Wednesday Erie resident Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong asks a judge to replace attorney Douglas Sughrue (suh-GROO’). She calls him inept and says he dresses “like a bum.”

The judge appointed Sughrue in September after Diehl-Armstrong said public defender Thomas Patton wasn’t aggressive enough and disagreed she was mentally competent. Now Diehl-Armstrong wants Patton back.

Sughrue says Armstrong won’t let him access information about her cancer diagnosis, possibly affecting her defense.

Diehl-Armstrong says she’s innocent of the 2003 robbery, in which the deliveryman told police he’d been forced at gunpoint to wear the collar bomb. The bomb exploded before police could defuse it.