Will my friend have to go to jail or is there another alternative?

Question

A friend of mine lives in KY and she has never been in any trouble. She got hooked on oxycontin for awhile and started writing cold checks on people to afford this expensive habit (which was no excuse for what she did.) She has been indicted and is waiting on her pre-trial conference. So far she has avoided jail because she confessed her crime to the detective working the case and helped make his job easier. He didn't put her in jail, he called her and told her what day to come in to find out if she was indicted or not. She is currently on a property bond waiting for her pre-trail conference. Is there another alternative to this crime since it is her first time other than jail? Or is she definitely facing jail time? She is being charged with forgery in the second degree (nine counts). Plus she can't afford an attorney so she has a public defender.

Answer 1

Good news and bad news.  

Bad first:

With nine counts, she will likely face some time.  What that is is anyone's guess.  If she is lucky, she will do a couple of months in county.  If she is not so lucky, she is headed for the penitentiary.  There's good news in that too though.  Kentucky pens are not that bad.  There are worse.  I have known some people who have done time behind the wire in Kentucky.  She will survive it, probably quite well.

She has a PD (public defender).  There is no faster way of getting convicted than to have a public defender.  He's not getting paid by his client, he knows he is not getting paid by his client, so he does not have his client's best interests at heart.  There are exceptions.  Hopefully her PD is one of them.

She confessed.  As honorable as this might be, she has cut her options to nothing.  She is at the mercy of this detective and the prosecutor's office.  Not somewhere anyone really wants to be.  These people are not known for their honesty nor their integrity in dealing with people who need help.  Again, there are exceptions, but fewer actually than the exceptions in the public defender's office.

Now the good:

Her previous record will limit what the courts can actually do to her.  First offense, she came clean, and (hopefully) she is doing what she needs to be doing now.

She could get probation, restitution, fines, and community service.  It might help, if she hasn't already, if she got into rehab.  She needs to be, and it will go in her favor when she goes before the judge.

If she gets jail time, just be there for her to give her as much support as you can.

If she gets penitentiary time, email me.  I may be able to give more specific advice that can make it easier for her.

Answer 2

She needs to be in jail. Shee deserves to be in jail. She chose to take Oxy. She chose to write bad checks. She chose the course of her life. Now she needs to take her medicine.

Answer 3

Hopefully they will take into consideration her clean record before this, doubtful though..  9 counts of forgery i'm pretty sure she will have to server some time, or possibly rehab.. A girl i knew wrote checks out of her own account and they sent her to jail

Answer 4

do the crime.. do the time.  she should go to jail.  if she dont then there is really no lesson learned from this and she will think that as long as she keeps confessing that nothing will happen to her.  i dont see how it is possible for her to skate on all 9 charges.  there is no way the courts will let her off.  i would say there is a 100% chance of her doing jail time as well as fines and probation.

Answer 5

A big help to her would be to start paying back the bad checks, also going to regular N A meetings will be a big boost. If she is really sorry and wants to not do the Oxycontin and clean up her life these will help all the way around.

Answer 6

Its definitely not great, if she has enough money she could get out of it easily in court by opting to pay a huge fine which makes everyone happy but I don't think she does.  I would consider her pleading the case that she needs to get some kind of rehab for the oxycontins; its logical and actually dangerous to stop completely. Maybe then it would be rehab then probation and community service.  She isnt a criminal or a bad person, its a terrible situation to go through and she probably was a trite bit too messed up to see the severity of what she was doing.  Hope it works out.