By Brandi Makuski

A convicted drug dealer’s sentencing has been delayed after the defendant claimed he didn’t understand his rights earlier in the trial process.

Nestor Vega, Sr., 39, was convicted by a jury last October on five counts of manufacturing heroin and one count of maintaining a drug trafficking place. Vega also pleaded no contest on three smaller charges, including bail-jumping an possession of THC.

Vega is now claiming he didn’t understand his legal rights, or the trial process, when he made those pleas, and alleged his previous lawyer — Vega’s current lawyer is his third in this case — forced him into making them.

Vega testified on May 19 he didn’t grasp the concept of a trial, even though he’d previously told Judge Robert Shannon he did understand the process, as well as the implications of making a plea.

Vega testified his previous lawyer, Stephen Sawyer, assured him Knaapen would drop the lesser offenses of bail-jumping and THC possession if he were found guilty on the heroin felonies. Having to submit a plea on those charges was confusing, he said, and claims he was only given “a minute or two” to decide.

Vega’s lawyer, John Charles Bachman, read excerpts from a transcript of the July plea hearing where Shannon asked Vega if he understood his legal rights. The transcript shows Vega answering in the affirmative at that time, and on Friday Bachman asked Vega why.

“It was a lot for me to understand. I was confused,” Vega said. “Most of the time when the judge speaks, I don’t understand the language that you guys, professionals, legal talk [sic], so…whatever Mr. Knaapen told me, [I would] just say ‘Yes’ so we can get this over with.”

But Knaapen didn’t buy Vega’s story, and on cross-examination asked Vega about his multiple affirmative responses at previous hearings when Shannon asked if Vega understood his rights. The exchange was, at times, contentious.

“In the transcript, Mr. Vega, you were asked if you had ‘enough time to discuss these matters with Mr. Sawyer relative to your plea’,” Knaapen said. “Do you remember being asked that?”

“I was forced to say ‘Yes, your honor’, ‘No, your honor’, by my attorney,” Vega replied.

“So ‘No, your honor’ was a choice; that means you had a choice,” Knaapen said. “There’s nothing complicated about the phrase, ‘Have you had enough time?’ They’re simple, everyday words.”

“I made a mistake, Mr. Knaapen,” Vega replied. “Like I said, I’m confused. I didn’t really understand what was going on. I didn’t know I could talk about it because I probably would’ve gotten my attorney in hot water.”

“This isn’t about making a mistake,” Knaapen said. “This is about answering truthfully when the judge asks you a question.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have a law degree, so I don’t understand most of what you guys talk about, so…I don’t understand the concept of a whole trial situation,” Vega replied. “I never been to trial, or gone to school [to learn] about what a trial is.”

“You clearly understood the jury was going to come in this room,” Knaapen fired back, “that you had a right to call witnesses — what’s complicated about understanding that?”

“Nothing at all, I guess,” Vega said. “I mean, according to you, I’m the smart guy here.”

During additional questioning, Bachman asked Vega about which specific legal rights he did not understand.

“I don’t understand any of it, really,” Vega replied. “My attorney at the time told me to just agree, that to everything the judge says, to say ‘Yes’.”

Vega also said he has a “slow learning disability” but never brought it up at trial because he thought his lawyer would.

In his brief testimony, Sawyer said in the five months he worked as Vega’s lawyer, the two met “several times”, sometimes for longer than two-and-a-half hours.

Sawyer said he did explain the trial process to Vega, but wasn’t immediately able to confirm if Vega disclosed a lack of understanding about his rights or the court proceedings, citing attorney-client confidentiality.

Sawyer’s testimony was then cut short due to a family emergency.

It’s not the first delay in the Vega case. Court records show he was uncooperative with the court’s pre-sentencing investigation, delaying proceedings by about three months.

Vega was arrested last year after a Central Wisconsin Drug Task Force operation conducted $700 worth of undercover drug buys from Vega at his Whiting Ave. home over a period of five days. At least some of the exchanges involved giving money directly to Vega, then picking up the drugs from underneath an oil can in the garage, while Vega remained inside the home.

He returns to court for sentencing on June 2.