After a five-day trial earlier this month in Anne Arundel Circuit Court, a jury convicted Christian of perpetrating a felony theft scheme - a crime that carries up to 15 years in a state prison.
But when Christian, a Davidsonville resident, goes to court Wednesday to be sentenced, state guidelines will recommend Circuit Court Judge Michele D. Jaklitsch order the first-time offender to serve no more than six months in a county jail.
A review of 13...
| This story has expired! You can purchase the full text in our news archives. |
If you encounter other problems, please email nlundskow@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.
In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.
Take a look at a summary of Commenting Guidelines.
Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 0
0
? - 2009-10-26 12:10:04
I think this story begs a couple of questions.
First, How many of these people receiving short sentences have committed new crimes after their release? If a 6 months sentence is what is necessary to correct the behavior, then I would think it is appropriate.
Second, are there suspended sentences attached to these defendants? If someone receives 5 years and all but six months are suspended, then that also seems appropriate. If this is the only crime they ever commit then the six months has served its purpose, but if they reoffend then they can receive the suspended time as well.
Third, the ACFE statistics show that a total roughly 55% of fraud examiners have seen a rise. Are the other 45% showing a decrease? And are they actually keeping records or is this just their estimation? And are larger volume examiners given more weight? If I handle 100 fraud cases in '08 and only 20 in '09 while 5 smaller examiners see an increase from 5 cases to 10 in the same year, the total number goes down but the number of examiners seeing an increase goes up.
unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?
D R. - severna park, MD - Karma: Excellent
Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 3
1
i agree with mr k - 2009-10-26 10:31:18
there is no need to put this woman in jail for a lenghty time....and get MADD out of our dui convictions....we need to stop listening to this single interest groups......especially MADD....i like the community service idea alot !!
unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?
stanley d. - mayo, md - Karma: Terrible
Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 1
4
HERE'S AN IDEA - 2009-10-25 13:12:19
Here is my idea. no jail time for first time offenders of non violent crimes. However they must perform at least an equivalent amount of time doing community service. This would be for at least 2 hours after their normal work day and for 12 hours on weekends. You get no days off until time is served. If you take vacation from work, you are required to do at least 12 hours that day of service time. The threat of losing ones free time just might be the ticket. Go AWOL on your service time and go to jail for the original sentence. Virginia Christian was good at math.... let her teach math to kids and adults who need help in that area.
unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?
Mr K - Crownsville, Md - Karma: Excellent
If you encounter other problems, please email nlundskow@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.