SAN DIEGO -- Sentencing was delayed Friday for a mother of four convicted of poisoning her Marine husband so she could cash in on his $250,000 military life insurance policy.

Cynthia Sommer, 33, was convicted Jan. 30 of first-degree murder and special circumstance allegations of murder by poison and murder for financial gain for the Feb. 18, 2002, death of Sgt. Todd Sommer.

Defense attorney Allen Bloom told Judge Peter Deddeh he had been hired as co-counsel to seek a new trial. Sentencing was rescheduled for May 31.

Bloom told reporters that defense attorney Robert Udell may have felt too strongly about his client's innocence to properly present all of the evidence in the case.

Bloom said the judge has received about 50 letters about the trial and that most of the letters say "an enormous injustice has occurred."

"(The letters say) `This wasn't fair and this wasn't right,"' Bloom said.

He said having the trial shown live on Court TV might have helped some people determine that the right verdict wasn't delivered and moved them to write to the judge about it.

Deddeh told both attorneys that he will not consider the letters for sentencing purposes.

Sommer faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if sentencing goes forward.

Bloom said Sommer "feels pretty upbeat" about the support she's been getting.

"She feels good. Her spirits are strong," Bloom said.

Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn said the new trial motion was "pretty routine" and that some people might feel sympathy toward Sommer since she is now a single mother.

Todd Sommer's death in 2002 was originally thought to have been from natural causes. But a test in 2003 for heavy metals showed arsenic levels more than 1,000 times the normal level in his liver and 250 times above normal in his kidneys.

The defendant made four inquiries about money in the first five hours after her husband died, Gunn said. Then, over the ensuing weeks, she paid $5,400 for breast implants, had sex with three male Marines and a woman, hosted loud parties at her house and participated in a wet T-shirt contest and thong contest in Tijuana, the prosecutor said.

The day of the verdict, Udell suggested an appeal was planned on two grounds: the legal sufficiency of the evidence and the fact that Deddeh allowed Gunn to put on evidence of the defendant's sexual conduct with multiple partners after her husband's death.