The plea bargain

Between September of 2007, when DSS finally allowed me to come home and July of 2008, nothing happened with my legal case.  Two very high profile murder cases came up and completely dominated the DA and and assistant DAs time.  Unless I was willing to plead guilty to my full charges, they didn’t even want to talk to me.  So on the advise my of my attorney, we waited.

In July of 2008, my attorney contacted me and informed me that the assistant DA assigned to my case finally wanted to meet with my attorney.  I don’t know the details of what was discussed, but he wanted to meet with us.  Later that week we had a meeting with him, and the assistant DA had made a “final” plea bargain.  The plea bargain was: Misdemeanor assault on a minor.  If I took this plea, I would not have to register as a sex offender and would be required to take a 3-month sexual offender class, server 18-months of probation, and pay the “victim” $2000.00 to cover Evonne’s supposed counseling.  Additionally, the felony charges and arrest would be expunged from my record.

Obviously I didn’t want to take a plea, but this particular offer had a few things that attracted me:

1. Based on what I had learned it was very very rare for a felony charge like mine to be reduced to a misdemeanor.  What that did tell me though was that the DA didn’t think she had a strong case.  The question was, was I willing to risk my family?
2. A misdemeanor charge would most likely let me keep my job.
3. Taking the plea would let me move on with my life, and not have to endure another 6-12 months of emotional stress waiting for trial.

The most important thing to be at the time was the well being of my family.  They depended on me for my income, especially considering my 9-year old is a type 1 diabetic.  What this plea really boiled down to was one question: Was I willing to risk my family for a not-guilty verdict?

Needless to say we told my attorney we needed some time.  This was one of the most important decisions I had ever faced.  I also needed to consult with my employer and make sure that if I accepted the plea I could stay employed.

I asked my attorney for his recommendation.  He slowly replied and said while it wasn’t the outcome either of us desired, it was a very very good deal.  He also said in the history of him handling similar cases, he had never had a felony case reduced to a misdemeanor like this.  His recommendation was that I take the plea.  His whole point being that if we went to trial, he still felt the verdict would boil down to whether the jury believed me or a 4 year old girl.  History shows that juries believe children, not adults.  He said he honestly felt that we had a 50% chance of winning.  He also took some time to make me very aware of what would happen if a “guilty” verdict was issued.  Chances were I would go to jail, I would definitely be placed on the sex offender registry, and would also be a prime target for a follow on civil suit for damages (read $$).

We left his office with lots of information to think on, and big decision to make.  If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

I also considered one last thing…My whole purpose of wanting to go to trial was to be found innocent.  I wanted this more than anything so that I could throw it in the faces all of our friends that turned their backs on us.  But would that really happen?  Most likely not.  Based on what I had read, even if I was found innocent, those people would just think I “got off”.  Their decision on whether I was guilty or not was made a long time ago when they first heard I was arrested.  I seriously doubted a “not guilty” verdict would change their minds.