Defendant to testify in Pa. collar-bomb case

Published 9:41 am Tuesday, October 12, 2010

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The defense attorney for an Erie woman accused of masterminding a bizarre bank robbery scheme says his client is planning to testify in her own defense.

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Defense attorney Douglas Sughrue (suh-GREW’) revealed the strategy in pretrial arguments on behalf of his client, 61-year-old Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.

Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in her trial for an armed bank robbery and other charges in a complicated bank robbery plot that left 46-year-old pizza delivery driver Brian Wells dead in August 2003.

Federal prosecutors say the defendant masterminded the scheme in which Wells was forced to rob a bank while wearing a bomb collar. It exploded as he sat handcuffed in a parking lot as police waited for a bomb squad to arrive.