Defendant Wants to Renew Plea Deal Based on Lawyer Communication Issues

By Mia Kimm [former] , Ashley Fajardo Perez [former] - February 20, 2024
Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

On Feb. 20, before DC Superior Court Judge Jason Park, multiple witnesses testified about a motion to allow a shooting defendant to reconsider a rejected global plea offer.

Travone Henderson, 20, is charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a license, possession of unregistered firearm, and destruction of property, for his alleged involvement in a non-fatal shooting incident that occurred on May 3, 2022, on the 2400 block of Shannon Place, SE. No injuries were reported. 

On Jan. 8, Henderson’s defense attorney, Sara Kopecki, filed a motion for a hearing on adequate representation. She argued he should Henderson be allowed to “determine whether he was denied effective assistance of counsel during the critical stage of plea bargaining which resulted in him losing a global plea offer… he asks for the remedy of putting him back into a position where he could take the global plea offer.” 

Kopecki called Theodore Shaw, a defense attorney, to testify regarding his involvement in the case. 

Shaw stood in for Henderson’s former defense attorney, Varsha Govindaraju, who was not able to attend the continued preliminary hearing on Nov. 28, 2023. 

Shaw testified that he had received court documents and preparation notes from Govindaraju detailing what she wished to cover during the preliminary hearing. 

However, Shaw mentioned there was no communication from Govindaraju about the global plea offer, so he was not aware that moving forward with the preliminary hearing meant rejecting the deal. 

Next, Kopecki called Henderson to testify about his understanding of when the global plea offer was rejected. 

He recalled that when he learned about the plea deal before the preliminary hearing, he was certain that he wanted to accept it. However, he was unaware of how the preliminary hearing would impact the plea offer. 

Henderson testified that he didn’t realize the plea offer was rejected until he was in court for another case, which would’ve been dropped according to the terms of the plea agreement. 

During cross examination by the prosecution, Henderson was presented with a court transcript of the preliminary hearing. The transcript showed the prosecution “put on the record” that if the hearing was to go forward, this would mean the global plea offer would be rejected. 

Afterwards, Kopecki called Varsha Govindaraju to testify about her involvement as Henderson’s former defense attorney. 

Govindaraju said that she filed a motion to withdraw from the case after she failed to communicate the full extent of the plea agreement to Henderson and Shaw. 

Judge Park questioned Govindaraju’s thought process on why she didn’t communicate with Shaw regarding the plea offer.

Govindaraju attributed her ineffectiveness to her schedule which she said was “at capacity” the weekend before the preliminary hearing.

Following Govindaraju’s testimony, Judge Park expressed needing “to think about this for a [second]” and suggested scheduling a follow up hearing which both parties agreed to. 

Parties are expected to reconvene on Feb. 22.