Attorney seeks pay for defending client

An attorney for Dirren Conyers says her small law firm will collapse if the state does not pay her to represent her client at a monthlong manslaughter trial.

Conyers, 33, of Groton, is accused of fatally strangling Jose Cartagena following a melee in front of a Miami Court, Groton, home on April 13, 2008. He has rejected the state's offer to plead guilty in exchange for a prison sentence of up to 15 years and is on the list of defendants awaiting trial in New London Superior Court.

Bridgeport attorney Tina Sypek D'Amato filed a motion to be paid as a special public defender for representing Conyers at trial. She said his father paid a retainer when she took the case and the family agreed to a payment plan. The retainer is long exhausted, she said, and she has not received a single payment. D'Amato said the case is complicated and a trial could take up to a month. She said she is the firm's only full-time attorney. Her husband practices law part time, but serves mostly as a stay-at-home dad for their 16-month-old child.

"My law firm will collapse if I am not able to get appointed as a special public defender," she said in court Monday.

A special public defender is a private attorney who contracts with the state to represent indigent defendants when in-house public defenders cannot take a case due to a conflict of interest or other reason. D'Amato said that 80 percent of her practice is as a special public defender.

New London Superior Court judge Susan B. Handy denied the motion, saying D'Amato made the choice to represent Conyers and now that he is defaulting on his payment agreement, "you want the court to rescue you."

"In all due respect, there is no reason for me to appoint you as a special public defender," Handy said. She said she would reconsider if the Chief Public Defender's office approves the request.

Conyers claims he was trying to break up the fight that led to Cartagena's death. D'Amato said she thinks the evidence will provide a jury with "reasonable doubt" that her client committed the crime.

"I try to help everybody, and most of the time it works out," she said. "I don't ask to be appointed a special public defender on every case I get jammed up on, but this is a very serious case."

Conyers posted bond following his arrests in 2008 in the manslaughter case and for possession of body armor. He had remained free while awaiting trial, but has been incarcerated in lieu of more than $500,000 in bonds since January, when he was arrested following a domestic dispute, D'Amato said.

- Karen Florin