Pot Dealer Who Claimed Innocence Pleads Guilty to 2001 Murder: Report

MANASSAS, VA - A long-running murder case reached a conclusion Tuesday in a Manassas courtroom as a former marijuana dealer pleaded gulty to the 2001 slaying.

Justin Michael Wolfe entered his plea before a Prince William County Circuit Court judge, admitting his guilt in the murder of Daniel Petrole Jr., 21, a fellow marijuana dealer, the Washington Post reported. Petrole was found shot to death in the driveay of his Bristow townhouse in March 2001.

Wolfe had long asserted his innocence, even after he was sent to Virginia's death row in 2002, when a jury convicted him of the killing, the Post said. Wolfe's accomplice in the crime, Owen Merton Barber IV, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Wolfe in exchange for a sentence of 38 years. Barber, the triggerman, said that Wolfe had ordered him to kill Petrole.

As appeals wound through the courts in the next few years, Barber reversed his testimony twice, the Post said. In 2011, after Wolfe had spent nine years on death row, a federal judge ordered a new trial, saying that Prince William prosecutors had engaged in misconduct by withholding or ignoring evidence and testimony that could have helped Wolfe's defense in the original trial.

In 2013, Wolfe nearly walked out of prison a free manwhen the federal judge ordered his release. But an appeals court stayed that order, and a Fairfax County prosecutor resumed the case against Wolfe, saying that he would also seek the death penalty.

On Tuesday, Wolfe pleaded guilty to a charge of first-degree felony murder, use of a firearm and a drug charge, as part of an agreement with prosecutors that avoids the death penalty, the Post reported. Under the plea deal, Wolfe will face between 29 and 41 years when he's sentenced on July 20, with credit for the 15 years he's already served.