tad.dickens@roanoke.com 981-3236

A man who pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder said he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison.

He probably won't have to, according to the terms of a plea agreement forged with Roanoke prosecutors.

Abdishakur Muhidin Hassan, who entered Alford pleas in the Feb. 3 shooting death of Frederick "Ricky" Mumford, faces possible prison time of about 17 years in exchange for his pleas. Hassan, 23, an immigrant from Somalia, was charged with first-degree murder, but prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge.

The evidence against Hassan was strong, but the commonwealth had problems with three witnesses, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Seth Weston said. One of the three recanted his story on paper, then in the presence of prosecutors recanted the recantation, Weston said.

Getting a conviction and prison time outweighed the risks of taking Hassan to trial, Weston said.

Mumford's brother, Paul Mumford, left the courtroom frustrated early in the hearing. He said that he would rather have seen Hassan get a first-degree murder conviction, but will take what he can get.

"He took my brother's life," said Paul Mumford, 40, of Concord, N.C. "He left my niece and nephew fatherless. And he was my only brother."

When Hassan is sentenced Oct. 25, prosecutors can ask for no more than a 25-year sentence, with all but 14 years and four months suspended for murder, and a mandatory three years on the firearms charge, according to the plea agreement. Hassan's defense can argue for a lesser term.

Hassan entered Alford pleas, under which he can maintain his innocence while acknowledging that the evidence against him is strong enough that a judge or jury would likely convict him.

He told Circuit Judge Charlie Dorsey, through a Somali interpreter, that he entered the pleas because he is a young man and wants to be relatively young when he emerges from prison.

Hassan first entered a straight guilty plea, but when Dorsey asked him if he was entering his pleas because he was, in fact, guilty, Hassan balked.

"No," he said through a Somali interpreter whose voice was broadcast over a speakerphone. "I'm admitting it because I'm afraid to get sentenced to life in prison, or 60 years. That's why I'm entering the plea."

Dorsey asked Hassan's attorney, Jack Gregory, if his client meant to enter Alford pleas. Gregory said yes, and the plea was changed.

That circumstance was not the only unusual thing about the afternoon hearing. The interpreter was calling from Washington, D.C., so a clerk placed the phone in front of Dorsey. Hassan and the lawyers stood in a semicircle in the jury box in front of the judge's bench, where they could all hear her.

Weston, the prosecutor, gave a summary of the evidence, stopping frequently so the interpreter could repeat the summary in Somali.

According to Weston's summary:

It started when Ricky Mumford, 41, and his longtime girlfriend were arguing at 518 Mountain Ave. S.W. Hassan, who was there, got involved. Weston did not discuss what Hassan was doing at Mumford's apartment.

"The defendant interjected himself into the argument at no one's request by having words and an oral argument with Ricky," Weston said.

Hassan and Mumford went outside, where witnesses later said Hassan fired a gun into the air four times. Police were called, but the two went back inside.

Mumford and the woman began arguing again - Weston did not discuss the nature of the argument but said it never turned physical. Again, Hassan got in the middle of it. Before police arrived, the two men again went outside.

Three eyewitnesses told investigators that there was no altercation going on between them, that Mumford was unarmed and that he was neither arguing with nor threatening Hassan.

But, Weston said, Hassan pulled a gun and shot Mumford in the left cheek. A .32-caliber bullet went into Mumford's brain. He died five days later. Authorities never found the gun, but found matching ammunition in a search of Hassan's apartment in the 700 block of Sixth Street. Weston said that police found a spent shell casing in Hassan's apartment that matched one found near the crime scene.