A man is headed to trial after a signed plea deal was pulled at the last minute by prosecutors, after a defense lawyer said the victim’s family opposed it.
Aaron Belcher, 36, of unincorporated Griffith, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and battery for shooting his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend in August 2023. The trial is rescheduled for Nov. 12.
The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Deputy Prosecutor Keith Anderson said in court Monday it came down to a “miscommunication” with victim Aaron Swelfer’s family on the new plea’s terms. It hadn’t yet had a hearing before a judge to approve it, so they could pull it, he argued.
Defense lawyer Mike Woods said Anderson’s explanation “sanitizes” what happened.
Prosecutors were operating under the assumption for months that Swelfer was unable to come in for a sworn deposition, based on what his family said, the lawyer said.
Judge Salvador Vasquez rejected the first plea on Aug. 9 — for 11 years in prison — after Swelfer showed up with his family. He was put on the stand and testified about his devastating injuries, which were far worse than the judge realized. Vasquez ordered Swelfer’s deposition, so he could testify further about what he remembered.
At the August hearing, Uriah Swelfer, the victim’s brother, called Belcher a “career criminal” and said his brother was stuck with significant memory problems, blindness in one eye, and a lifetime of expensive medical care for his injuries. Swelfer’s family was not immediately available Tuesday.
The family had given a media interview before that hearing opposing a plea deal and supervisors in the Lake County Prosecutor’s Office were fearful they would go back to the press, Woods said.
When Swelfer showed up for a deposition on Oct. 2, he grew visibly upset and audibly refused to testify, the lawyer said. Without the victim’s sworn testimony, shortly afterward, a prosecutor’s office supervisor offered the 20-year plea deal.
The next afternoon, a different supervisor told him in the court hallway the deal was off.
“The family is unhappy about it and you can just imagine what the paper would write,” Woods recounted in the conversation.
During a hearing on Oct. 4, Anderson and co-counsel Jacquelyn Altpeter told a temporary judge the deal was off. A decision was postponed until Vasquez returned on Monday.
Over the weekend, Woods said the prosecutor’s office offered a new tentative plea deal for 22 years to lawyer Paul Stracci, Woods’ boss. Mid-afternoon Sunday, they pulled that offer, he said.
The back-and-forth was “bad faith” negotiations, the lawyer argued. It distracted them from time they could have spent preparing for trial.
Anderson countered that after Aaron Swelfer was shot in the head, it was hard for him to understand what was going on.
Vasquez granted Anderson’s motion — saying the new plea hadn’t been taken up in a hearing.
A pretrial conference is scheduled for later this month.
Multiple police agencies responded just before 2 p.m. Aug. 2, 2023 to the 1100 block of E. Highway 330 in unincorporated Griffith for a reported assault with a firearm.
They saw a woman screaming for help from a window. She said her ex-boyfriend, Belcher, took off in a red truck. Officers found Swelfer shot lying in front of a back housing unit, charges state. He was bleeding heavily, shot in the head and arm. He had a “bandage” wrapped around his head.
