A former Manchester lawyer serving more than 30 years in prison for sexually exploiting a teenage girl has requested a new trial, claiming her former attorney rushed through the case and ignored several plausible defenses.

In a motion filed Wednesday in federal court, a new lawyer for the woman, Lisa Biron, said both Biron’s mental health and the credibility of government witnesses should have been investigated before the trial, and that the trial itself should never have proceeded as soon as it did. Biron was indicted in November 2012 and convicted just two months later after barely two days of testimony.

It was “an unduly fast period of time that severely prejudiced (Biron’s) ability to present any or even an adeququate defense to these incredibly serious charges,” wrote the new lawyer, Charles Keefe, a former assistant attorney general.

Biron was found guilty of arranging and filming repeated sexual encounters between the then-14-year-old girl and two young men, including a particularly salacious weekend trip to Ontario. Now 46, Biron is being held at the Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas, a facility for inmates with special medical and mental health needs. She is scheduled for release in 2048.

Keefe argues that the trial lawyer, veteran Concord defender Jim Moir, never investigated “an insanity or diminished capacity defense.”

Moir did flag concerns about Biron’s mental state during her sentencing, but he hardly mentioned it at trial, according to Keefe. Biron’s husband had left in 2011, and she began drinking heavily and experimenting with drugs in the months that followed. A psychologist later described her behavior through 2012 as strikingly out of character, particularly for someone who had put herself through law school and become deeply active in her church, at one point joining a national coalition of Christian lawyers. 

“Lisa Biron before her husband left . . . and the Lisa Biron who committed the acts here are clearly two different people,” Keefe wrote. 

Keefe also argued that Moir simply didn’t give himself enough time to put together a proper defense. He noted that discovery in the case – all the records turned over by prosecutors to the defense – exceeded 1,500 pages, including “incredibly significant” witness statements shared less than two weeks before the trial.

Biron never contested Moir’s effectiveness in her two post-trial appeals, but that’s not uncommon in federal court, Keefe said, as the issue is typically saved for the trial judge – in this case Paul Barbadoro.

Moir declined to comment on the claims, but said he respected Biron’s right to raise them. He presented a seemingly sparse defense at trial, calling no witnesses and arguing simply that prosecutors had no proof that Biron had coerced the girl or planned to film the encounters. 

At the sentencing in May 2013, the victim expressed sympathy for Biron, insisting in a recorded statement that she was “not the monster she is made out to be.”

“I would love to see (her) have a second chance and not spend the rest of her life behind bars,” she said.

(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)

 

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