MUSKEGON, MI - Isiah Amoz Spears, whose no-contest pleas produced Muskegon County's first gang-murder conviction in history, now says he's innocent.

In a hearing on his motion to withdraw his negotiated pleas, Spears said: "I didn't kill nobody. I didn't harm no one."

On the witness stand Monday, Jan. 4, under questioning by his court-appointed attorney, Al Swanson, Spears repeatedly insisted he "didn't understand clearly" the plea deal Swanson negotiated for him in September 2015.

In that deal, Spears, 23, of Muskegon pleaded no contest Sept. 29 to second-degree murder and gang-related felony for the Jan. 24, 2013, shooting death of Kentae Jones, of Muskegon Heights. Spears also acknowledged being a third-time offender because of two drug convictions in 2011.

The pleas were by agreement with the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office, which dropped the original charge of open murder and agreed to accept minimum sentences of 18 years in prison on both counts, to run at the same time. A "gang felony" sentence can run consecutively, but judges have the option of making it concurrent instead.

Now Spears wants to withdraw those pleas "in the interest of justice" and take his case to trial.

In court Monday, Spears told Muskegon County Chief Circuit Judge William C. Marietti he didn't read and understand the deal Swanson made -- despite his statements to Marietti at the time, under oath, that he had read and understood the deal and hadn't been forced to plead.

"I'm a special education student," Spears said Monday. "I know how to read a little, but not really understand ... 'cuz my IQ at a very low level.

"I didn't understand the plea that I was taking, that I was going to do prison time," he said.

Under close questioning by Marietti, Spears finally said, "I lied, sir," when he had testified Sept. 29 that he understood what he was doing.

"I was ineffectively represented," Spears told the judge at one point.

Swanson requested to be taken off the case, citing an ethical inability to continue questioning Spears without violating attorney-client privilege. Marietti granted the request. The Muskegon County Public Defender's Office will appoint a new attorney to represent Spears.

Marietti did not rule on Spears' request to withdraw his pleas. That decision will come after a further hearing with a new public defender.

The prosecutor's office opposes a plea withdrawal.

Senior Assistant Prosecutor Robert F. Hedges said no evidence has been presented that the change would be "in the interest of justice," as Michigan law requires.

"This is just, 'Gee, I changed my mind,'" Hedges said.

Hedges also argued holding a trial now could unfairly prejudice the prosecution, because a key prosecution witness who testified at Spears' preliminary examination might not be willing to testify a second time.

Hedges said a witness's mother's house has been shot at, his father has had a gun pointed at him, "and there have been constant threats."

The drive-by shooting of Jones outside his home in the 2400 block of Sixth Street, while he was moving a couch in, was the first in what's become a nearly 3-year-long string of homicides allegedly motivated by a Muskegon vs. Muskegon Heights gang rivalry.

Prosecutors allege Jones was shot because he was a member of a Muskegon Heights gang and had gone into a Wood Street party store on the Muskegon gang's turf the day he was shot. There, he had taken a picture of his friend Myron Jackson Jr. flashing gang signs, then possibly posted the photo on Facebook, according to testimony at Spears' preliminary hearing on the gang charge earlier this year.

At the end of that hearing in March 2015, which featured extensive testimony, photographs and rap videos, Muskegon County Chief District Judge Maria Ladas Hoopes declared of the Muskegon gang: "it's just old-fashioned Mafia."

John S. Hausman is a reporter for MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter.