Virginia won’t release convicted murderer Jens Soering to federal custody for any reason short of a court order, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said Monday.
Former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine sent the U.S. Department of Justice a request in January that it transfer the Bedford County killer back to his native Germany, where he could be paroled in two years.
Gov. Bob McDonnell revoked Kaine’s transfer request during his first week in office.
Cuccinelli said he’s ready to defend McDonnell’s revocation if the Justice Department chooses to ignore it and instead grant Kaine’s request.
“We have documents prepared to go,” partly at the insistence of state Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, if the Justice Department grants the transfer request, Cuccinelli said.
But he doesn’t expect to need the papers, Cuccinelli said in an interview in Lynchburg on Monday.
“If the (U.S.) administration wants Jens Soering transferred to Germany, they are going have to sue us to do it,” Cuccinelli said.
“It is hard for me to imagine that they are going to go into federal court to sue the commonwealth for the purpose of springing a double murderer. That takes a level of chutzpah that bypasses the Olympics if they had a chutzpah contest,” Cuccinelli said.
“I just can’t see it happening.”
McDonnell spokeswoman Taylor Thornley confirmed Cuccinelli’s remarks.
“Absent a valid court order from the federal government, the governor will not transfer Jens Soering to federal custody. Jens Soering should remain in the commonwealth’s custody,” Thornley said.
Soering is serving two life terms at the Brunswick Correctional Center for the 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford County home.
Elizabeth Haysom, Soering’s girlfriend at the time and the daughter of the Haysoms, is serving a 90-year sentence as an accomplice.
Kaine’s request, which he sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during the governor’s final week in office in January, took people in the Lynchburg and Bedford areas by surprise.
Haysom family relatives and Bedford County law enforcement officials have sent letters asking the Justice Department to deny the transfer request, and the General Assembly passed a resolution sponsored by Newman that also opposes the transfer.
Newman apparently is the only Virginia official to receive a response from the Justice Department, Cuccinelli said. In that response, the federal office said it is considering arguments by German attorneys who contend that McDonnell cannot revoke a request made by the governor who preceded him.
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