Attorney faults law clinic report’s false claims about his work for woman who killed her abuser

TOPEKA — The attorney who worked out a plea deal for a woman who is now seeking clemency for killing her abuser says a Washburn University Law Clinic report is filled with false allegations about him.

The law clinic sent its report to Gov. Laura Kelly earlier this year to support Sarah Gonzales-McLinn’s request for clemency. Gonzales-McLinn is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the first-degree murder of Hal Sasko, who controlled her finances and repeatedly raped her before she killed him in 2014 in Lawrence.

She was convicted after a trial in which a Douglas County judge blocked the jury from hearing evidence of the abuse she suffered and then sentenced her to a minimum of 50 years in prison. Attorney Jonathan Sternberg represented her as she appealed that conviction and asked for a new trial.

Kansas Reflector last week reported on the law clinic report, which faults Sternberg for presenting Gonzales-McLinn with a plea deal in 2021 that cut the minimum prison sentence in half — but also took away her right to appeal.

Sternberg sent a letter to the governor this week that says he “unequivocally” supports clemency for his former client. However, he says in the letter, “I am appalled by the false account of my representation that the Washburn Law Clinic submitted to you.”

The law clinic report quoted from Sternberg’s emails to Gonzales-McLinn’s mother without disclosing that some of his words had been removed from one of the quotes. The report claims Gonzales-McLinn sent Sternberg questions about the plea deal that he didn’t answer, but Sternberg said the email was actually from her mother. Sternberg didn’t respond because the mother had complained to the Kansas City Star about the pending plea deal.

The report also says Sternberg pressured Gonzales-McLinn into signing the plea deal the day he presented it to her. In fact, Sternberg says in his letter, Gonzales-McLinn signed the plea deal two months later.

Sternberg’s letter addresses the clinic’s accusations of his ineffectiveness, professional neglect, financial self-interest and withholding of information from his client, as well as the clinic including him in the list of men who had exploited Gonzales-McLinn.

“To support those accusations, the clinic altered my words, omitted the evidence and arguments I presented, and misrepresented the chronology of my advice and her decision,” Sternberg wrote. “Its comparison of me to the man who abused her is beyond the pale.”

Matt Bender, director of the Washburn University Law Clinic, described his report as “advocacy.” He told Kansas Reflector he would send a follow-up letter to the governor to acknowledge that a quote from Sternberg omitted words without an ellipsis, and that a paraphrase had been placed in quotation marks. He also said he would correct the report’s false claims that Gonzales-McLinn’s family had paid Sternberg $3,000 per month for two years and was running out of money when he presented the plea deal.

Bender said he still believes Sternberg provided inadequate advice to Gonzales-McLinn.

“I maintain the memo’s conclusions that the Governor should not defer to the 2021 settlement and that Sarah should receive clemency,” Bender said. “Her sentence is disproportionately severe.”

There is no question that Gonzales-McLinn killed Sasko, but advocates have argued for years that she deserves a new trial with a lesser charge or clemency from the governor.

Gonzales-McLinn moved in with the 52-year-old Sasko when she was 17. He took her paychecks and told her she was in debt to him. He monitored her movements and conversations, and made her turn her phone over to him at night. For months, he forced her to have increasingly painful sex.

When she was 19, Gonzales-McLinn drugged Sasko, cut his neck with a knife and wrote “freedom” on the wall in his blood.

The governor, who leaves office in January, has given no public indication to whether she will consider her request for clemency.

Sternberg asked the governor to keep his letter with the clinic’s report “and give no weight to its false account of my representation.”

“My support for Ms. Gonzales-McLinn’s clemency does not depend on the clinic’s response. I want her application to succeed,” Sternberg wrote. “I believe her testimony about the horrific abuse she endured, and I urge you to commute her sentence without delaying consideration of her application because of the clinic’s misconduct here.”