Published: November 03, 2009 09:45 am      

Keavy couple enter Alford pleas

Facing charges of threatening informant

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

Christina Rose Denham and Brandon Bruce Pitman on Friday entered Alford pleas to charges they threatened a confidential informant who aided in the arrest of one of the defendant’s relatives.

Sentencing is set for Feb. 8, 2010 in U.S. District Court in London. They face a maximum penalty of 20 years incarceration.

The Alford plea is not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgment that there is enough evidence to convict the accused.

The Keavy couple was indicted in February for allegedly conspiring with each other to “threaten to cause bodily injury to another person with intent to retaliate against that person.”

That person was a confidential informant used to make an allegedly controlled drug purchase from Denham’s aunt, Judy Wilder.

Wilder was one of 32 persons arrested in a drug roundup on Jan. 16.

In the five days following Wilder’s arrest, 22 threatening messages were allegedly left on the informant’s cell phone.

Denham was arrested four days later and Pitman in the next few days.

According to an affidavit filed by an ATF agent, the calls began the day of Wilder’s arrest with Pitman allegedly telling the informant, “I’ve got a picture of you and when I find you, you are a dead man.”

In another call, allegedly from Denham, the informant was told, “You’re dead. do you hear that? You’re (expletive) dead. And you won’t know where it’s coming from. Next thing you know you’ll be (expletive) lying with your (expletive) hands cut off.”

In one message, Denham reportedly threatened to kill the children of the informant’s ex-girlfriend.

In three voice mails, Pitman allegedly tried to local the informant’s whereabouts by claiming to be a law enforcement officer seeking to provide protective custody.