A Florida woman accused of killing her boyfriend by suffocating him in a suitcase has claimed she is “not the problem” in a rambling 58-page letter to the judge after burning through eight defense attorneys.
Sarah Boone, 46, was arrested in February 2020 and charged with second-degree murder after her boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr, 42, was found lifeless inside a suitcase at their home after what Boone described as a game of hide-and-seek gone wrong.
She has maintained that Torres’ death was an accident after a night of drinking.
Since her arrest, Boone has been represented by several defense attorneys, and on June 7, during a court appearance, she argued that her eighth lawyer wasn’t up to standard.
“I’ve never experienced anyone like Ms Cashman,” Boone said of her attorney Patricia Cashman as she handed over a 58-page letter to the judge about Cashman’s representation.
“She will change her disposition and her attitude towards me, and it doesn’t matter how dumbed-down I am to myself to try to co-exist with her.
“I’ve even come up with the solution to have a pretend judge in interactions with her so she would try hopefully to treat me appropriately and professionally, which she does not do.”
Boone’s remarks repeated accusations made in the letter in which she wrote: “I AM NOT THE PROBLEM EXCEPT THAT I WANT TO, AND SHOULD BE TREATED FAIRLY WITH RESPECT, ACTING MORE PROFESSIONAL THAN THE PAID ‘I’VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR OVER 40 YEARS’ PROFESSIONAL.”
“After so long in all the experience, common courtesy, customer service and listening skills should have been acquired.”
Boone added that Cashman is not including her in discussions about the case and accused her attorney of not believing in her alleged innocence.
The murder suspect went on to admit that she has walked out of meetings with Cashman “due to her unwarranted, uninformative, unprofessional, snotty attitude and her untruthful answers to my questions and beyond.”
“How she treats me is extremely prejudiced, hostile and unconcerned,” she wrote.
Despite her disagreement’s with Cashman, Boone said she does not wish to have her attorney replaced like the others, writing: “I should feel secure, highly confident, proud in her representing my life.
“I do not, and have said to her many times regarding her monumental disbelief in me and my case, which I believe contributes greatly to her inimical attitudes towards me.
“I am hoping by this letter she will pick up the sword of injustice and fight alongside, not against me as so many unmotivated, overwhelmed, weak attorneys who bowed out ungracefully and crept away from the battlefield unsuccessful.”
Four days after Boone submitted the letter, Cashman filed a motion asking to withdraw from the case and cited irreconcilable differences “including, but not limited to, ethical considerations,” according to Court TV.
In the motion, Cashman told an entirely different story about her time representing Boone, alleging that the 46-year-old refused to cooperate with her.
“I’ve spent over 20 hours going through her questions, going through her lists,” Cashman told the court.
“When I try to update her with regard to the depositions that I took recently, she opted to exit the jail conference.
“When I tried to review some things with regard to discovery as to things I wanted to make sure she was aware of, she walked out.”
She added: “I can’t spend all my time defending what I’m doing and at the same time be effectively preparing a case for trial.”
A hearing for Cashman’s motion to be removed from the case has not yet been scheduled, but Boone’s trial is set to begin on October 7.
She has maintained her innocence after she told police that Torres died in the suitcase while the two were playing hide-and-seek after a night of drinking.
During her initial interview with a detective, Boone said she and Torres had decided together to zip him into the suitcase after she had hidden upstairs in the shower but Torres had failed to come and look for her.
“Sarah and Jorge were both laughing that she zipped him into the suitcase,” the affidavit stated.
Boone said she left two of Torres’ fingers sticking out of the zipper so he would be able to free himself.
She then decided to go upstairs and get into bed, while Torres was still stuck in the suitcase, thinking that he could get himself out and join her in bed, according to court documents, which added that she fell asleep before waking up the next morning when she could not find her boyfriend anywhere.
“Sarah freaked out and remembered the last time she saw Jorge was when she zipped him in the suitcase,” according to the arrest document.
She then unzipped the luggage and found Torres unresponsive inside. Deputies who responded to the residence said Torres had a cut on his lip, bruising around his eye, forehead, and shoulder, and nail scratches on his back and neck.
Video footage was later found on Boone’s phone in which Torres could be heard yelling at Boone from inside the suitcase and telling her he cannot breathe, prompting the woman to laugh at him in response.
“Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me,” Boone then tells her boyfriend in the video, according to an affidavit as Torres continues desperately trying to free himself from the suitcase, telling his girlfriend he could not breathe.
“That’s on you. Oh, that’s what I feel like when you cheat on me,” Boone told him, according to the document, adding he “should probably shut the f*** up.”
A second video found on Boone’s phone shows the luggage in a different position. On that recording, Torres is heard yelling Boone’s name and saying, “I can’t f***ing breathe.”
Boone later said she did not remember recording the videos, which she conceded ‘looked “bad.”
