Court: Convicted sex offender can’t withdraw plea

Fowler pleaded no contest to charges of abusing girl, 11

A request by an Altoona man to withdraw his no-contest plea to child sexual abuse charges has been denied by the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

In an opinion handed down last Thursday, the appeals court ruled that Blair County Judge Daniel J. Milliron committed no error when he refused a request by Corey George Fowler to withdraw his plea to charges that he had sexually abused an 11-year-old girl in 2015.

Fowler in 2019 entered no-contest pleas to charges of indecent assault of a child and photographing, videotaping and depicting sexual acts of children.

The pleas also included possession of child pornography.

Fowler, 41, pleaded to the charges on July 22, 2019, and on Nov. 9, 2020, he was sentenced by Milliron to a state prison term of five to 10 years.

At the completion of his prison sentence, Fowler will be on probation for the ensuing 10 years and will be required to register with police as a sex offender for life.

He is incarcerated in the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale.

After entering his pleas, Fowler requested several delays in his sentencing and finally filed a motion to withdraw the pleas.

He is represented by Blair County Public Defender Russell Montgomery.

Fowler contended that at the time he entered his pleas he had been experiencing illness and was taking "numerous medications."

They affected his ability "to fully understand all the intended circumstances of his plea," he argued.

After a hearing on the motion to withdraw, Milliron ruled at the time of his plea Fowler understood the charges against him, the maximum sentences he could receive and his rights to a jury trial.

Milliron further explained, "(Fowler) made no statement that he did not understand the plea, (that he) did not have the mental capacity to make a decision, or that there was any mental/physical condition or medication taken that had any effect on his decision to plead guilty."

He also ruled that allowing Fowler to withdraw his plea could have prejudiced the prosecution.

"It had been five years from the date of the alleged criminal conduct," the judge pointed out.

Much of the delay in the case came at the defense request.

Sending the case back to the trial stage may damage the victim's "sense of closure" and "reopen old wounds," Milliron said.

Superior Court Judges John T. Bender, Mary Jane Bowes and Dan Pelligrini upheld Milliron's decision.

The appeals court judges noted that Fowler stated in his plea colloquy that he had sufficient time with his attorney to discuss the case and even wrote down the sentence he was to receive.

"Given this record, we discern no abuse of discretion in the trial court's conclusion that the reasons provided by (Fowler) ... to withdraw his plea equate to little more than bare assertions lacking the specificity needed to make a determination in (his) favor," the Superior Court panel stated.

As explained in the opinion written by Bender, Pennsylvania law allows a trial judge to grant the withdrawal of a plea prior to sentencing.

The opinion continued that a request to withdraw a plea should be "liberally granted," but it also stated, "A defendant does not have an absolute right to withdraw a plea."

The trial judge, in deciding whether to grant withdrawal, should consider if the defendant's reasons for withdrawal would "promote fairness and justice," it said.

"(Fowler) concludes that the trial court should have permitted him to withdraw his no-contest plea. After reviewing the record in this case, we disagree," the Bender opinion stated.