PARIS — The former attorney for a Norway man seeking a new trial after he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for trying to kill his sleeping ex-girlfriend said that she exercised proper judgment when she requested state records that later proved devastating to his case. 

Wednesday’s hearing in Oxford County Superior Court was the second hearing in the post-conviction review of Andrew Freeman. The bulk of the testimony relied heavily on his attorney’s request of Department of Health and Human Services records just prior to sentencing, which outlined a troubled history that eventually led to a harsher sentence.

In 2011, Freeman, now 25, broke into the Norway home where his recent ex-girlfriend lived with her grandparents, waited until the family was asleep, then set two fires in the basement. No one was injured in the attempted arson as both fires were extinguished before they could cause serious damage.

In essence, a post-conviction review tests two factors: whether the defendant’s trial attorney was ineffectual and, if but for the representation, the defendant would have been acquitted. 

No decision was made Wednesday, and Freeman has 30 days to file memorandums with the court. 

Attorney William Pagnano said that Freeman’s attorney at the time, Sarah Glynn, erred by not checking with Freeman or his mother about what the DHHS records — which details his youth of starting fires and receiving psychiatric treatment — might contain.

State prosecutors used the information to argue for a harsher sentence on the basis that Freeman, if free, presented a danger to society. 

Glynn, whose testimony Wednesday disputed that of her former client, said she failed to uncover any past history that might prove detrimental to their case.

Glynn testified that she hoped the records would cast Freeman in a sympathetic light and hopefully convince a judge that, along with a shorter prison sentence, Freeman should be admitted to a rehabilitation program. 

Pagnano attacked that assertion and argued that she should have been on the lookout for the troubled news the records contained after a private investigator she hired before the trial found four incidences of fire-starting. 

However, Glynn said those incidents, including creating a large flame with an aerosol can and throwing a squirrel into a fire, were not credible, and that others did not set off warning bells because they did not rise to the severity of arson. 

“We had no idea there was so much negative,” Glynn said. 

When Pagnano said that Glynn should have objected to closing statements made by prosecutors, alleging criminal conduct Freeman hadn’t committed, such as stalking his ex-girlfriend, Glynn said that she didn’t want to bring the jury’s attention to the claim or make it appear as though they had something to hide. 

She testified that she offered to advise him on his sentencing testimony, but was never shown the outline she urged him to write. Additionally, though he wanted to testify in his defense, Glynn advised otherwise. She said Freeman had lied to investigators and could succumb to cross-examination. 

During the trial, despite a plea offer from the state in which he would serve five years of a 10-year sentence, Freeman maintained he was innocent of all charges and wanted to go to trial to prove it. She said that giving him a percentage-based likelihood of success, as he claimed during a hearing earlier this month, was unlike her.

Although she told her client a five-year prison sentence was a good offer in light of the time he could get if convicted, she left the decision up to him. She said Freeman was committed to going to trial. 

“He always maintained he didn’t do it, and wouldn’t plead to something he hadn’t done,” Glynn said. 

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