Judge denies request to change no contest plea in Harveys Lake stabbing

May 14—WILKES-BARRE — A Luzerne County judge denied a request by a Laflin woman who wanted to withdraw her no-contest plea on a felony assault charge stemming from a stabbing in Harveys Lake in 2020.

Isabella Rosa Sobejano, 24, of Peachwood Drive, claimed she was pressured into signing the no-contest plea agreement to aggravated assault by her lawyer, Ruth K. Lenahan.

Pennsylvania State Police at Wilkes-Barre charged Sobejano after she stabbed Samuel Parente in the neck with a paring knife inside a boat house on June 15, 2020, according to court records.

Sobejano, at the time a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, had Parente do jumping jacks before she stabbed him in the neck, court records say.

Parente reportedly was ending the relationship with Sobejano who claimed she was pregnant with his child in order for the relationship to continue. The pregnancy was false, state police stated in court records.

After Sobejano pled no-contest to aggravated assault on July 7, 2022, Judge David W. Lupas sentenced her to one-year house arrest and 30 months probation.

However, Philadelphia County where Sobejano was attending medical school does not accept transfers of defendants sentenced to house arrest.

Sobejano previously testified she was forced to withdraw from the University of Pennsylvania and was attending a community college.

In her petition for Post Conviction Relief, filed by her appellate attorney, Zak T. Goldstein of Philadelphia, Sobejano requested to withdraw her no-contest plea as she claimed she was pressured into the agreement as her attorneys were unprepared.

Sobejano was initially represented by Attorney Mark Mack of the Mack Law Firm and believed she was not being properly represented. Sobejano then retained Attorney Lenahan, who represented her for nearly a year.

When Sobejano's case was called for trial on April 18, 2022, she had re-retained the Mack Law Firm as she previously testified she believed Lenahan was unprepared. Lenahan was the attorney-of-record on the no-contest plea agreement.

Lupas denied to continue Sobejano's trial in April 2022, which she believed forced her into the no-contest plea agreement.

A PCRA hearing was held in March when Sobejano claimed she was "stuck between a rock and a hard place," and her lawyers never fully explained the no-contest plea agreement.

Lupas denied the request, upholding Sobejano's no-contest plea.

Former assistant district attorney Drew McLaughlin, who prosecuted the case, previously called Sobejano's request, "buyer's remorse."