new tonight a federal judge is rejecting a plea deal reached by prosecutors and two of the men convicted in the mudder of ahmaud arbery under the terms of the agreement the mcmichaels would have been transferred from a state prison to federal custody. arbery s mother was angered by the proposed deal and told the judge not to accept it. the attorney for ahmaud arbery s family joins me now. we re so happy you re here to discuss this. good evening. ahmaud s mother wonda cooper jones called the plea deal disrespectful. tell us why this deal wasn t enough. well, the main concern with the deal was that wonda fought hard to secure a state conviction for the three men who murdered her son two without the possibility of parole.
new tonight a federal judge is rejecting a plea deal reached by prosecutors and two of the men convicted in the mudder of ahmaud arbery under the terms of the agreement the mcmichaels would have been transferred from a state prison to federal custody. arbery s mother was angered by the proposed deal and told the judge not to accept it. the attorney for ahmaud arbery s family joins me now. we re so happy you re here to discuss this. good evening. ahmaud s mother wonda cooper jones called the plea deal disrespectful. tell us why this deal wasn t enough. well, the main concern with the deal was that wonda fought hard to secure a state conviction for the three men who murdered her son two without the possibility of parole. and this deal would allow them
case and vice versa so these cases are independent from one another and separate charges and should be viewed as two separate occurrences so whatever happens on appeal and i don t think to your point it is likely that we will see a successful appeal by the defendants in either case but if by chance that were to occur, it would not impact the case one way or the other. let me play wonda cooper jones. she was very fiery today with good reason and she was actually calling out the department of justice and calling out one person in the department of justice by name despite how happy she was about this verdict. take a look. i spoke to christian clark and the lead attorney tara lions begging them to please not take this plea deal. they ignored my cry. what we got today, we would have gotten today if it wasn t for the fight that the family put up
appreciate it. thank you for having us. wonda, you know, nearly two years since your son s murder, what was it like to watch these sentences handed down today? it was very, very rewarding. today was the day my family and i prayed for almost two years ago and finally got our prayers answered. you know, the judge was scathing in his accessment of the mcmichaels zeroing in on the lack of remorse. it doesn t require an apology and quite honestly, apologies are made simply to get past problems, remorse is something that s felt and demonstrated. in this case, getting back to the video again, after ahmaud arbery fell, the mcmichaels turned their backs. even after they shot your son, they never admitted to making a mistake, never apologized. i know that stuck with you.
he was tall with an athletic build. he enjoyed running and had an appreciation for being outdoors. these are the qualities that made these men assume that ahmaud was a dangerous criminal and chased him with guns drawn. to me, those qualities reflect that a young man full of life and energy who looked like me and the people i love. ahmaud arbery s mother wonda cooper jones speaking movingly about her son and responding to a defense attorney s attempt to insult his memory. he had a smile so bright it lit up a room. he never hesitated to tell me, his sister jasmine and his brother marcus that he loved us.