A man who pleaded no contest to killing 27-year-old Amery Sweany near Marysville is now trying to unwind that deal just weeks before he was set to be sentenced to 24 years in prison. Ricky Singh Lasher, 41, was scheduled to be sentenced this month in Yuba Superior Court, but Judge Julia Scrogin postponed the hearing after Lasher moved to withdraw his no-contest plea to voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and sexual battery.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Lasher's trial had been scheduled to begin four days after he entered his plea on April 10, and he agreed to delay the proceedings until the following month. His defense attorney told the court he never reviewed with Lasher the lifetime driver's-license consequence tied to the conviction, and that Lasher did not realize the plea would permanently bar him from holding a California driver's license. Deputy District Attorney Adam Seraphin opposed the motion, calling it, in the Bee's reporting, another delay tactic, and argued the claim does not meet the good-cause requirement needed to withdraw a plea.
The Legal Bar Lasher Must Clear
Under California Penal Code Section 1018, a defendant seeking to withdraw a plea before sentencing must prove good cause — such as ignorance, mistake, or ineffective assistance of counsel — by clear and convincing evidence, according to the Esfandi Law Group. California courts have held that simple buyer's remorse does not meet that threshold. Judge Scrogin, per the Bee's account, said Lasher had indicated during his plea colloquy that he understood the license consequence, a statement that could weigh against the defense's ineffective-assistance argument.
The stakes of the October hearing go well beyond a license. If a judge grants a Section 1018 motion, the plea bargain is vacated entirely, and prosecutors may try the defendant on all original counts — including first-degree murder — according to Cron, Israels & Stark. That means a successful motion would strip away the negotiated 24-year term and put Lasher back in front of a jury without any agreed-upon sentencing cap, exposing him to the possibility of life in prison. Judge Scrogin has scheduled the plea-withdrawal hearing for October 22, with sentencing set for October 26 if the motion is denied.
Under California Vehicle Code Section 13350, the Department of Motor Vehicles must immediately revoke driving privileges for anyone convicted of a felony involving a motor vehicle, with reinstatement eligibility requiring at least a one-year revocation and proof of financial responsibility, per Justia Law. Lasher's plea deal, as reported by the Bee, dropped first-degree murder charges, misdemeanor sexual battery charges, assault with intent to commit mayhem charges, and possession of drug paraphernalia charges in exchange for the manslaughter agreement.
How Investigators Connected Lasher to Sweany's Death
Sweany's body was found on April 27, 2023, in an orchard near the 1700 block of Simpson Lane in Marysville after a passerby spotted her remains, according to the Bee's reporting. Investigators believe she died from blunt-force trauma and may have been struck by a vehicle. An SFGATE report from April 2024 found that Yuba County Sheriff's Department investigators ultimately determined the impact that killed Sweany was intentional rather than a hit-and-run accident, based on surveillance video and timeline reconstruction, according to SFGATE. What began as a suspicious-death case on Simpson Lane shifted once that footage pointed toward an intentional act.
Sheriff's officials also told SFGATE that investigators found no prior connection or relationship between Lasher and Sweany before the encounter. Lasher was arrested in the 1400 block of Jamie Drive in Yuba City, nearly a year after Sweany's body was located, and was later arraigned on first-degree murder charges, held on $1 million bail before eventually entering his plea deal this past April, as reported by CBS News in its coverage of the arrest.
In the early days of the investigation, misinformation spread through local community groups. The Yuba County Sheriff's Office issued a public statement in May 2023 dispelling viral rumors that Sweany had been found bound and gagged, explaining that her severe facial trauma and torn clothing were consistent with a motor vehicle impact, according to ABC10.
Who Was Amery Sweany
Sweany, originally from Vacaville, attended Buckingham Magnet Charter School and later studied at Butte Community College and Chico State, per the Bee's reporting. Her relatives, who flew to court by airplane to attend the sentencing hearing before it was postponed, described her to the Bee as compassionate, intelligent and extremely strong-willed, saying her life ended abruptly and unjustly.
SFGATE's reporting also notes that Sweany had her own history with vehicular offenses. In June 2020, she was sentenced in Butte County Superior Court to six years and eight months in state prison for vehicular manslaughter after a 2019 Chico collision that killed 64-year-old Virgil Santos. She had served that prison time and moved to the Yuba-Sutter region before her own death in 2023.
Surveillance Tools Central to Yuba County Cases
Lasher remains in custody at the Yuba County jail as the plea-withdrawal fight heads toward the October hearing. The reliance on surveillance footage to track Sweany's movements and identify Lasher's vehicle reflects a broader pattern in Yuba County homicide work: sheriff's office leadership told county supervisors in August that automated license plate readers and surveillance video review are vital tools in solving regional homicides and hit-and-run cases, as Hoodline reported. That same month, Yuba County prosecutors filed homicide charges against a 48-year-old Marysville resident in an unrelated fatal river-bottom stabbing, underscoring the steady caseload of serious violent-crime prosecutions moving through Yuba Superior Court.
