Henri Morris, 67, a former Houston software executive, is fighting by himself for an appeal after ditching his two lawyers.
Morris was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually abusing his female employees. He has filed paperwork notifying the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals indicating that he will challenge that sentence handed down in a U.S. District Court.
Morris has formerly pleaded guilty to the charges twice. The first plea was part of an agreement that would allow him to later withdraw the guilty plea if the judge sentenced him to more than one year in prison. The judge threw out that agreement after hearing from Morris’s victims.
The software executive pleaded guilty again, and was handed the sentence.
Morris was first arrested in 2012 by FBI agents, and was formally accused of taking employees on out-of-state business trips, where he would drug their drinks and sexually abuse them while they slept.
While on bail, he was ordered back into incarceration over concerns that he had tampered with a GPS tracking device used by authorities to monitor his location.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Zack asked that any unknown victims come forward.
“I want victims out there – male, female, adult, child, whoever you are – to know that you can come forward and law enforcement will listen to you,” Zack was quoted in the Houston Chronicle. “If you don’t come forward, there is nothing anyone can do to help you, but if you do, there are ways to get help and justice.”
Source: Chron.com, “Ex software exec ditches lawyers, fights prison sentence with appeal,” by Dane Schiller, April 27, 2015