Lawyer: Laffer had no choice on guilty plea

David Laffer had no choice but to plead guilty to killing four people in a Medford drugstore, both his lawyer and the district attorney agreed Thursday.

Laffer was boxed in both by the considerable evidence against him and a lack of viable defenses he could use at a trial, said his lawyer, Eric Naiburg of Central Islip.

"I searched my soul and all my legal abilities and determined this defendant had no realistic possibility of going to trial," Naiburg said in court.

He said he considered if Laffer had a mental health problem that could have prevented him from standing trial. But he concluded his client "certainly understood the nature of the charges against him and can assist in his defense."

Naiburg also said he determined there was no viable insanity defense, because there was no evidence Laffer ever suffered from a mental disease or defect. Nor could he argue that Laffer acted during an extreme emotional disturbance, a factor that would have allowed the defense to seek a manslaughter verdict.

Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said the compelling evidence against Laffer gave him nowhere to go except toward a guilty plea.

The store surveillance video showed Laffer shooting three of the four victims without warning, and the screams and gunshots of the fourth murder were audible. In addition, authorities said, Laffer left his fingerprints at the scene, which matched prints on the permit application he got for the murder weapon. And the disassembled weapon and 2,000 of the 10,000 hydrocodone pills he stole were recovered at his house in Medford after a search.

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"Never . . . have I ever seen a case of this magnitude resolved as swiftly and successfully as this was resolved," Spota said. "There was no way to beat this case."