By Staff Reporter |

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover attempted to secure a plea deal that would have allowed an accused murderer to walk free based on time served.

65-year-old Blain Beckham is charged with the 2019 murder of 71-year-old Fernando Broyles. Broyles was found deceased in his home by a neighbor, bludgeoned to death by a claw hammer. 

A judge rejected the plea deal during a hearing on Monday. 

Broyles’ sister Yolanda Broyles-Gonzales called the plea deal “outrageous” in an interview with KVOA and expressed gratitude for the judge’s decision. 

“We are grateful that justice is working at this time,” said Broyles-Gonzalez. “It’s not over yet, but at least this outrageous plea deal is off the table.”

Broyles had invited Beckham to stay in his home, something Broyles-Gonzales told KVOA that her brother often did for the homeless and those down on their luck.

“My brother was a good Samaritan. Take in the stranger, feed the poor, provide shelter for those who were in need of shelter,” said Broyles-Gonzales. “If you see a hardened criminal getting a light sentence for having killed a good Samaritan, I think the rest of the community would think twice before doing good deeds because they say this is what can happen.”

Beckham may either accept the judge’s decision on the plea deal or request another judge to reconsider the plea deal at his next hearing scheduled in about two weeks. 

Beckham has a lengthy criminal history, including multiple past instances of assault over the past decade and failure to register as a sex offender.

Earlier this summer, Conover successfully implemented another controversial plea deal when her office arranged for a nurse charged with sexually abusing a female patient to serve 30 days in jail and three years of probation.

48-year-old Jadd Sarah, former nurse with the Banner Health University Medical Center in Tucson, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a female patient who was incapacitated from seizures in February. 

Records reflect that footage shows Sarah entering the patient’s room and sexually abusing her. A probable cause statement said that the patient appeared to have a seizure as Sarah abused her — even then, Sarah did not stop the sexual contact. 

Sarah originally faced multiple charges in addition to sexual abuse, including aggravated assault. Altogether, the sentencing range for those charges would have been six months to more than two years in prison.

Conover defended the plea deal in a video interview with KOLD, saying that Sarah didn’t sexually abuse the patient so much as commit the sort of “unwanted touching” that might occur in a place like a bar. 

“It sounded like a sex assault had occurred, a rape, a molestation — and this was a touching,” said Conover. “I’m not minimizing this, but I think, you know, unfortunately in the world women are living in, I think it’s happening like in every bar across America every night. Like unwanted brief touching. Totally unacceptable, but you can see how if we had taken him to trial and we convicted him, maybe a six-month sentence for improper touching, and then he’s free to go about his life after that.”

Conover conceded that Sarah may have faced more time if they had taken the case to trial, but that the plea deal arrangement was better because Sarah would have long-term oversight through the probation process and was made to give up his nursing license.

Sarah may reapply for his nursing license in three years, though the county attorney’s office stated that Sarah promised in writing and to a judge that he would never work in the medical field again. 

Conover later issued a statement saying that the arrangement of the plea deal ensured “a lifetime of community protection” from Sarah. 

“Our highly experienced veteran team of special victims prosecutors ensured that the plea agreement would protect our community from this individual ever serving in the medical profession again,” said Conover. “[W]e traded one month for six months and negotiated a complete withdrawal from the medical field altogether to protect future patients for years to come.”

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