PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge in Phoenix has rejected a plea agreement that would have allowed a man who admitted to beating a Navajo elder and leaving her for dead to avoid more prison time.
Preston Henry Tolth, 26, now will face trial on charges of carjacking and assault in relation to the 2021 disappearance of Ella Mae Begay. A trial date hasn’t been set.
Under the agreement, Tolth would have been released on a sentence of three years of time served in exchange for acknowledging his role in the crime and pleading guilty to a single count of robbery.
Known as a gifted weaver of pictorial rugs, Ella Mae Begay was 62 years-old when she vanished from Sweetwater, Arizona, the small community on the northern part of the Navajo Nation where she was raised and later brought up her own three children.
Begay’s disappearance received national media attention and helped highlight the broader crisis of Indigenous people who go missing or are killed at disproportionate rates. Nearly five years after she disappeared, Begay has not been found.
The rare decision to reject a plea agreement followed anguished testimony from Begay’s family members who told the court Tolth should not walk free without revealing Begay’s location.
Seraphine Warren described her aunt as a warm and sweet person who opted for “hugs instead of handshakes,” and implored the judge not to “give up on her” by accepting a plea agreement that Warren said offered no justice to the grieving family.
“Accountability is not time served,” Warren told the judge tearfully. “It’s about truth, and we still don’t have the truth.”
Gerald Begay, Ella Mae’s son, said, “I feel like the justice system has failed me.”
Tolth, whose father was dating Begay’s sister, was identified as a person of interest within days of Begay’s disappearance. He initially denied involvement but in a later interrogation, confessed to stealing Begay’s truck with her in it, punching her repeatedly and leaving her on the side of the road.
Tolth was set to face trial in 2024, but a federal judge dealt prosecutors a major blow by ruling his confession inadmissible, saying Tolth had been unlawfully coerced by an FBI agent who lied about evidence that law enforcement had against him after Tolth had invoked his right to remain silent.
The U.S. Attorney’s office for Arizona and Tolth’s public defenders declined to comment on the judge’s rejection of the plea agreement.
Tolth did not speak at Thursday’s hearing. His attorney asked the judge to consider his unstable childhood and history of homelessness and substance abuse, calling his three years in federal custody a reasonable sentence.
A federal prosecutor said the suppression of Tolth’s confession weakened the government’s case and that the plea agreement would provide Begay’s family with more certainty and finality than a trial with sparse evidence. Begay’s family members disagree.
“We want to see this go to trial because we have nothing to lose,” Warren said. “If we lose, at least we fought.”