What About This Teacher From Polenta?

From today's 1270 WMPM:

Teacher Pleads No Contest To Charges Of Having Sexual Relationship With Student - An elementary school teacher arrested last October on charges she had a sexual relationship with an 11-year-old male student has been convicted. Rebecca Withrow, 30, pled no contest to sex offense between school personnel and a student. In return for her plea, statutory rape, and two counts of indecent liberties with a minor were dismissed. Withrow will avoid jail time as long as she meets several conditions set by a court judge. She must register as a sex offender, remain on probation for 5 years, perform 120 hours of community service in the next 12 months, pay a $1,000 fine, stay away from the victim and his family, and if the victim should ever require psychiatric care, she must pay for those costs. Withrow was a teacher at PolentaElementary School when the assaults occurred in her classroom in 2003. Withrow had been hired as a fifth grade teacher at Polenta in August 2001. She resigned during an investigation by the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office last October 11. Since her arrest last fall, Withrow has reported moved out of state and is now living in Pennsylvania.

I remember a rather heated discussion about this, so if she was innocent as so many proclaimed, why did she plead no contest?

 

On second thought....I'll just mind my own business....

 

She could have done it to avoid jail time. Someone I work with is friends with her and she told me the carpet sample the SBI tested came back nothing. I have no idea about this case...too little info. All I know is all it takes is someone making an accustaion for someone to get booked for something like this. Scary. The non-legit cases really make me angry for many reasons, including the fact it makes the legit ones harder to prosecute.

 

ABSOLUTELY!!!

 

Not trying to be nosy, but it just didn't make sense to me. They must have had something, or she wouldn't have plead guilty. Who knows, just seems weird to me. If she is innocent, at least she's not going to jail...............................

On second thought, I think the public does have a right to know in this case, since she is a teacher and entrusted with our children. My sister's kids are in PA and I have one in this school system.

 

She didn't plead guilty. No Contest means she is not fighting the charge, but she doesn't admit to anything, either. It's kind of unusual for a plea bargain to involve a no contest plea; usually the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge. But I guess we never will know what really happened.

 

Your right KD's, I misquoted that..................the whole situation is strange.

 

Only she can answer as to why she plead the way she did. Absent a trial and verdict, none of us will know the facts.

My argument then, and still, is that the charges she faced were so inflammatory that most people react viscerally, and automatically presume guilt. My point was that until the trial, that she should have been presumed to be innocent.

This is a tragedy all around. Her children, his children, and her school children, her friends, and the community at large will suffer.

Pleading nolo contendre or no contest, as I understood is is not pleading guilty. It does suggest that, if the case went to trial that the likelihood of a guilty verdict for some or all of the charges was present. If a defense attorney were to urge a client to take the path of least resistance, this could serve as a prime example. The justice system is often a crap shoot. So, if unwilling to bet it all, and lose. then a no contest plea takes on added meaning.

Had she undergone a fair trial (never would have happened here and a change of venue would have resulted=more costs of trial and defense) and been found guilty, then I would have been leading the charge for punishment and restitution.

Defending oneself can be expensive.

Again, my take away is that this is a tragedy all around.

 

There is NO way I would plead no contest and be deamed a sex offender to make it all go away! I would have my day in court to prove innocence. I cannot image someone who is innocent carrying this stigma and punishment without a fight.

 

Is she still allowed to teach? I would hope not, but...

 

She may have plead it so she can move and get on with her life. I am with Ncmom on that, I will fight tooth and nail then be known as a sex offender. ESPECIALLY if I am innocent. Like one of you said- innocent until proven guilty. I dunno. I never met her but my brother had her. I pray she IS innocent because she is not in jail and she is around society. In my opinion a sex offender CANNOT be returned to society- too much temptation for one so sick. Like a crack head living in a crack factory.

 

How much justice could you afford?

NCMom,

I understand your thought. All of us should think that way, that if we were wrongfully accused, that we would go to the infinite length to show our innocence.

Justice, though, is expen$ive. Figure that you'd need a top tier attorney for this matter, as the average lawyer just ain't equipped to argue at this level. You'd need a seriously aggressive defense, and a bevy of expert witnesses, lab tests results, arguments, PI's, ..we're talking TEAMS of people..all of whom command top dollar. Figure that you'd need someone that's gonna charge you 500 bucks per HOUR, billed in tenths of hours for every piece of paper touched, phone call taken...and probably 750 to 1000 per hour for court room time. That doesn't include the expert witnesses, just the lawyer and his firm. Adds up Quick, Fast, and in a Hurry...

You'd probably have to commit to paying 20 thousand on retainer, plus costs. There goes the equity in the house. More costs = sell assets.


So, I don't have that kinda coin available. And I darned sure don't even want to consider bankrupting my family, when I could plea nolo contendre, get no jail time, and restart my life. And I could always state factually that I did not plead guilty to anything.

A good friend of mine, a physician, was accused of inaccurate billing of Medicare. His defense, ultimately successful, cost him a medical practice that he built over ten years, a home that he and his wife, a teacher, paid darned good money for. Never mind that his reputation was damaged, and finally, the verdict was in that he was innocent. He estimates that he spent over NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars. He had to start all over again. And, he couldn't ask the government to pay his legal bills. He ate the cost of his defense.

The government used our tax dollars to prosecute him They didn't have to account for anything, and had practically unlimited resource available to them.

Almost a million, and he was found not guilty.

Not defending her, just offering a different POV.

 

Thanks Hatteras for pointing out another case of injustice. I feel sorry for your friend and anyone in that situation. Unfortunately this is a common practice by our government and large corporations. I would bet that they spent more on prosecution than he allegedly incorrectly billed and the person responsible was never held accountable.

 

Accountability my fanny....

The person who alleged the financial mistake was never identified. The explanation given was that it was the federal government that was alleging the improper billing, and was represented by the US Attorney. In facing a representative from Medicare that had no first hand knowledge of how the allegation was formed and forwarded, it seemed that the government's position was that since the federal government was the one harmed, that any agent could have been the one to discover and forward the report of improper billing, and that my friend was not going to face the person, but was facing the federal government. Seemed chicken cacky at the time, more so each and every day that passes.

I recall that I could see in my friend, the same sort of "under siege" mentality that I've seen in combat. I recall the nights that he cried in my home, the days we spent cleaning and prepping his boat for him to sell it, his selling thier vacation home in NC. I saw how concerned that he was denying his children toys and fun, while working two jobs to pay for his defense. I recognized moral courage then. How crappy a deal is it, that reduces a good person to the level the government did him. Yeah, I guess one could say that the government was dispassionate, and was only seeking justice. I saw the price that my friend paid. And it wasn't an objective examination of justice for him.

I know that his passion for helping people was harmed. Who knows how many people were denied his level of care, because he had to become gun shy. how many Medicare patients went without his level of treatment, because he chose to not engage in Medicare, so as to preclude any further issues. how can a physician make it in a retirement rich Medicare place like FL without accepting Medicare patients. He swears that had he known this was gonna happen, he'd have gladly learned how to be a plumber.

One sometimes wonders whether or not a friend will have the guts to do the right thing and pay the price. He did. His biggest concern was whether or not he was unfairly causing his family to do so. The man has big STONES. To their marital credit, his wife has stayed with him every step of the way. Talk about commitment! He has steered his children away from medicine, and towards law. Wonder why? If the attorney loses the case, the client goes to jail, not the attorney. Whether the attorney wins or loses, he still gets paid.

And I'm told that judges will allow continuances in cases where the client has violated rule 1-b...nonpayment for legal counsel..until such time as the client can arrange for payment.

 

Scary if you ask me.

One person's accusation to ruin someone's life!

I can't imagine any man (or woman) at this point being a teacher at any grade.

One angry parent?

One accusation?

Dang.

Snoop

 

Since Ms. Withrow plead no contest she has options now. She is on probation & she is free.(not really)

When she was bailed out by her parents @ Christmas she moved to PA to be with them. This way she still gets visitation with her two girls. Hence going to jail she would never see them. I am not going there with the case b/c last time I spoke on it we know how I feel about it & it is dead now.

This is more punishment in the long run. She can never teach again. She can not be around children. People up there will all know. She will have that title for the rest of her life. Community service well that is a walk in the park whether or not she does it here or in PA.

Since the court refused to move it to another County she would not have gotten a fair trial at all. I will stand by the one thing Ms. Withrow was probaly the best teacher my child had ever had despite what happened.

 

Would anyone mind telling me what the actual evidence was?

The DA wouldn't have prosecuted unless there was clear-cut evidence correct?

 

I would have said yes, until this Mike Nifong fiasco.

 

LOL....Uggh.. Scary times we live in

 

DA's are elected...and re-elected, only if the voters perceive that they do a good job prosecuting. Although DA's are officers of the court, and therefore, theoretically supposed to be oriented towards Justice, they also operate with
the idea that Justice is served on the defendants behalf by defense lawyers. I've never known a DA to admit that he had no case, that the charges had no basis in fact. DA's don't apologize. DA's operate under the theory that if there is something wrong with a case, it's the job of the defense to bring it to light.

None of us are far removed from the potential accusation. And, as we all have seen, sometimes that's all that happens, and that's all it takes.

A lot of DAs reflect eh electorate that got them there. We scream for law and order, and those who seek the DA's job promise more and more law and order. Nifong is only the publicized version of DA's running amok...pandering to the voters...and ruining a persons life and livelihood, with a likelihood of being held accountable as remote as my being elected Pope. And, no, I'm not even Catholic. Except, in this case, Nifong is being held accountable.

If the maximum that can happen that Nifong is disbarred, that seems a pitiful portion of restitution to the defendants, and to the public that paid for the prosecution. Will the accuser pay? Not NO!, but 'ELL NO!