PITTSBURGH — The defense attorney for an Erie woman accused of masterminding a bizarre bank robbery scheme said his client is planning to testify in her own defense.

Defense attorney Douglas Sughrue revealed the strategy in pretrial arguments on behalf of his client, 61-year-old Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.

Jury selection is set to begin today in her trial for an armed bank robbery and other charges in a complicated bank robbery plot that left 46-year-old pizza delivery driver Brian Wells dead in August 2003.

Federal prosecutors say the defendant masterminded the scheme in which Wells was forced to rob a bank while wearing a bomb collar.

It exploded as he sat handcuffed in a parking lot as police waited for a bomb squad to arrive.