Zien Council is escorted from magisterial district court in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 7, 2020.
                                 Times Leader file photo

Zien Council is escorted from magisterial district court in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 7, 2020.

Times Leader file photo

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<p>Council </p>

Council

A Philadelphia man recently sentenced to life in prison after admitting to fatally shooting a 26-year-old woman in Wilkes-Barre has appealed denials by a Luzerne County judge to withdraw the plea agreement.

Zien Council, 20, through his attorney Janan Tallo, filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court on Tuesday.

Council is challenging several refusals by Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas to withdraw his plea to first-degree murder in the shooting death of Brittany Reynolds.

Reynolds was found dead inside her apartment on Matson Avenue, Wilkes-Barre, by a city police officer conducting a welfare check Dec. 20, 2019.

Investigators suspected Reynolds was killed three days earlier.

In a highly unusual procedure, Council on Aug. 6 pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced by Lupas to life in prison.

On the same day Lupas accepted the plea agreement and imposed the sentence, Council reportedly returned to the county correctional facility and typed a pro-se motion, meaning he filed it without assistance of a lawyer, seeking to withdraw the guilty plea.

Council filed the pro-se motion in county court.

Afterwards, Tallo on Aug. 18 was court appointed to represent Council during the appeal process.

Lupas denied Council’s request to withdraw the plea agreement on Oct. 18, and again on Nov. 1 when he was asked to reconsider, resulting in the appeal filed with the state Superior Court.