Regardless, it turned out that the hearing delay was postponing the inevitable, as multiple lawyers told me there was much more to lose in fighting the order than simply agreeing to it without an admission of guilt. Official statistics say that about 95% of them are granted in Centre County anyway (see the Appendix with statistics across the state). However, all the lawyers I spoke with seemed to think this number was low as not one knew of the courts denying an order for many years. I suspect that some accusers drop the petition, and lawyers never get involved. Second, if there were a hearing, there would be a public record of whatever was said. Because the allegations almost always are one person’s word against another’s, it’s easy to lie or exaggerate things without any threat of perjury. Plus, the plaintiff’s attorney, who is not under oath, can say anything they want. My attorney told me that whether true or not, the accusations Rita or her attorney might make in the hearing could have hurt my reputation even more; at the time, I was still trying to save my reputation.
Additionally, there was no way of disproving anything Rita said; it would merely have been my word against hers, and my attorney said I would always lose that argument. It didn’t seem to matter that Rita had no proof or evidence of any abuse. Thus, I agreed to the order without admitting guilt,
Foreshadowing what happened next, I wrote the following while incarcerated in the Centre County jail.
I am looking forward to finally being able to defend myself and hopefully prevent a final order from being issued. However, my attorney says that it is not even worth trying. Her argument to me is this. After two violations, Pam Ruest is angry with me and is very unlikely not to issue the order. It turns out that she hardly ever (if ever) declines to grant a final Protection from Abuse order. I am told that a prominent judge in the county had many years ago declined to grant such an order, and the accused wound up killing the accuser. The blowback from the community who elected the judge was tremendous. Thus, no judge wants to risk denying an order and then being blamed for someone being hurt or killed.