RE: Northam pardons politically connected pedophile
This is on the front page of the Louisville newspaper. This guy is a real piece of work. He is mentioned earlier in the thread. Couldn’t get the link to work since I’m traveling this week.
Man tries to get his child sex charges expunged
Andrew Wolfson
Louisville Courier Journal
Two years after Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned Micah Schoettle on his conviction for raping and sodomizing a girl when she was 9 to 12 years old, Schoettle is trying to erase his criminal record.
But Kenton Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders is vehemently opposing Schoettle’s application for an expungement — and harshly denouncing Bevin for the pardon.
“This defendant was convicted by a jury of his peers who, unlike the
lame-duck governor who granted defendant’s pardon, heard the evidence and testimony of his guilt,” Sanders said in a written response to motion, which will be heard Tuesday morning in Kenton Circuit Court.
“No pardon will ever change the fact this defendant was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Sanders said. “This defendant served a small fraction of the 23-year sentence recommended by the jury and imposed by the court.”
Sander reserved his greatest scorn for Bevin, who freed Schoettle in 2019, one year after he was convicted, based on the testimony from the girl, who said the man raped her once a week for four years, including sometimes in the same room as her younger sister, whom she said also was sexually abused.
“If not for the defendant’s millionaire mother donating thousands of dollars to organizations supporting the governor’s re-election campaign, this defendant’s case would never have been considered for a pardon,” Sanders said.
“Likewise, had the governor not been so arrogant and insulting to the citizens of the commonwealth, including to people who had supported his initial election, he would have won reelection,” Sanders said.
In his pardon order, Bevin said Schoettle was convicted based on testimony that was not supported by any physical evidence and the case was “investigated and prosecuted in a sloppy manner.”
The Courier Journal reported after the pardon that Bevin did not talk to prosecutors, the teen who reported the abuse or her mother before granting the pardon.
Schoettle’s attorney, Dominick Romeo, noted in an expungement application filed last month that there was “zero physical evidence.”
Romeo also said Kenton Circuit Judge Patricia Summe allowed the prosecution to introduce “junk science” — expert testimony explaining why children sometimes delay reporting sex abuse.
He cited three cases in which the Kentucky Supreme Court has disallowed evidence of Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome.
Bevin’s clemency order for Schoettle was one of 650 pardons and commutations he issued as he was leaving office after voters refused to give him a second term.
Responding to Schoettle’s application, Sander said testimony about the accommodation syndrome was proper because it wasn’t introduced to prove the sexual assault had occurred but instead to explain why children often delay reporting, Sanders noted Schoettle’s own expert agreed that delayed disclosure was accepted in the psychological community.
As for the lack of physical evidence, Sanders said that is common in a sexual assault. A physician who testified for the prosecution said about 50% of women she examined that were sexually active still had a hymen intact.
“Child molesting rarely happens in front of witnesses or leaves physical evidence,” Sanders said after the December 2019 pardon. “If we didn’t pursue those cases, 99% of child rapists would never be prosecuted.”
Schoettle’s counsel at trial contended the girl concocted her claims to get out of chores and because her cell phone had been taken away.
Romeo said in his motion the defense had been prohibited from presenting important testimony, including from the girl’s younger sister, who he said would have testified she was never abused by the man and he never abused her older sister while she was in the room.
But Sanders said Schoettle, 44, is a “danger to the community” and Summe should deny expungement of his record.
Sanders also said the pardon would never have been granted if Bevin had been re-elected.
“Instead, this unthinkable act became possible only because of the defendant’s mother’s wealth,” Sanders said, and the governor having “one foot out the door.”
|
![[Image: 555e2102f2d6e.image.jpg]](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HYiLROpU4-nx7mcbph2JjvmdkNw=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3720606/555e2102f2d6e.image.jpg)
