I’m sure the reader doesn’t miss the irony of this, and if it wasn’t for McClellan keeping the text messages, as the district attorney says, he could have been in grave legal trouble. The state had just paroled him from prison for making terroristic threats. I could not find details about this besides the threats being toward his brother. Thus, I am sure the district attorney would not have given him the benefit of the doubt when it came time to determine who to believe. He had spent six months in jail awaiting his day in court for the terroristic threats–he pleaded guilty–so I am sure he would not have been able to afford whatever bail the judge assessed on a rape charge.
I very much wonder what happened after Cindy–and Marty–made their allegations. There were 17 days between the claims and when the police interviewed McClellan, which seems like a long time. It was then another nine days before Brumbaugh was interviewed again and confessed. Hopefully, the police investigated the allegations, and I hope they would have been suspicious of them given the events and details Cindy provided. Since the police interviewed McClellan at the police barracks, I suspect they did not arrest him. It would be great to get his side of the story and understand how law enforcement treated him.
I am shocked that the district attorney allowed her to plead nolo contendre, as she was undoubtedly guilty of making false reports. I’m not sure what her defense would have been, besides maybe saying her husband pressured her into producing the information. My second attorney, Stephanie Cooper, represented her, but confidentiality prevents her from discussing things. Regardless, Stephanie got Cindy a pretty good deal, in my opinion. The judge sentenced Cindy to 100 hours of community service and 30 days to 18 months in county jail. The order states she would only spend 30 days in jail and the rest of the 17 months on parole. The judge also fined her $2500.
I have mixed feelings about this, as I often do when learning about other people’s sentences. Stephanie has told me more than once that each case is unique, and I shouldn’t compare. However, the court sentenced me to 30 days in jail for sending a period in a text message. Cindy tried to ruin a man’s life by accusing him of rape so she could preserve her business.
I also have strong opinions about someone making false allegations. The state charged Cindy with one Unsworn Falsification to Authorities count and two counts of False Reports to Law Enforcement Authorities. The unsworn-falsification charge and one of the false-reports charges are 2nd-degree misdemeanors and the other a 3rd-degree misdemeanor. If she got the statutory maximum for each charge, and they were to run consecutively, the sentence would be five years in prison. However, like most states, Pennsylvania has sentencing guidelines judges use, so there’s some uniformity across the state. I talk in detail about these in a later chapter, but judges take two factors into account. One is the Offense Gravity Score, and the other is the Prior Record Score. The 2nd-degree misdemeanors have an OGS of two, and the 3rd-degree one has an OGS of one; they all have a PRS of 1/2. With no prior record, the sentence for OGSs of one and two is community service. However, it’s not clear how these are combined when there are multiple charges.
In this light, it doesn’t seem like Cindy got such a great deal because, no matter how a judge would have combined the charges, her sentence should not have been more than two months in jail and a year of probation. My take on this is that Cindy got a poor deal from a legal perspective; she also likely lost her license as a therapist and probably her business. Marty’s name is now on the door, and there’s no record of a divorce, so I suspect he upgraded his license and took over the business. I’m pretty sure they lost their contract with the county, though.
What troubles me the most is how few consequences someone making false reports faces. Someone can accuse someone of rape and will probably not even face jail time unless they have a substantial prior record. Making false reports is one crime that lengthy sentences would act as a deterrent since it is premeditated. If people knew they could face serious jail time for falsely reporting a crime, I suspect they would be very much less likely to make the accusation.
Law enforcement officials and the courts seem to think that someone making the false report is simply guilty of wasting their time. Wasting government time may be the only effect when a person does not explicitly accuse someone else. In Pennsylvania, there is a distinction in the law; a false report that falsely incriminates another is a 2nd-degree misdemeanor, while a fictitious report to law enforcement is a 3rd-degree misdemeanor. The distinction only makes sense if “another” means a specific person or persons. Thus, the state does seem to recognize that it’s worse to accuse someone specific, but a 2nd-degree misdemeanor is still a minimal charge for something that could have grave consequences for an innocent person.
When someone incriminates a specific person, or the police have identified a suspect, the punishment should depend on the accusations. Consider the turmoil this would cause the accused. Most inchoate–primarily “attempted” crimes–have gravity scores of one point less than if the criminal had successfully executed the crime. In many regards, falsely accusing someone of a crime could be as traumatic as an attempted crime to the victim. Falsely accusing someone of rape or sexual assault should have far more significant consequences than what comes with a 2nd-degree misdemeanor.
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