Woman who staged hate crime weeps as she is sentenced to prison
By PAUL NOWELL, Associated Press Writer
September 25, 2002 1:54 am
Posted on 09/25/2002 10:48:25 AM PDT by Constitution Day
Woman who staged hate crime weeps as she is sentenced to prison
By PAUL NOWELL, Associated Press Writer
September 25, 2002 1:54 am
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Jaelyn Sealey, a former North Carolina woman who admitted she staged a hate crime at her home more than two years ago to collect insurance money, wept as she was sentenced to six months in prison.
Sealey, 35, formerly of Huntersville, declined to address the court before she was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg, who also ordered that Sealey be on supervised release for two years after she is released.
Sealey also was ordered to pay $5,829 in restitution, including $2,225 that was given to her family by neighbors and others when they thought someone had burned the Sealeys' car and painted racial slurs on their garage.
Sealey, who now lives in Tustin, Calif., and is expected to begin serving her sentence in several months, said nothing as she left the courthouse.
"This has been a very, very stressful case," defense attorney Noell Tin as Sealey and her husband, Steven, scurried to their car.
"I just can't put words in my client's mouth," he said. "I know there are things she would have liked to say."
Outside the courthouse, Huntersville police detective Gerald Childress said he came to court expecting to see a more remorseful Sealey.
"I think an apology is something the town would have liked to get," he said.
The detective also said he believed Sealey should have gotten a longer prison sentence.
"I think it (sentence) was pretty light for the amount of people who were involved in this, including the ATF (federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), the FBI, and the Huntersville Police," he said.
"The town of Huntersville was a victim," Childress said. "She used the racial aspect as a ploy to get support. All she wanted to do was go back to California."
Within hours after Sealey called 911 on May 10, 2000, support began pouring in from her neighbors. They held a rally, brought food, and helped wash the words off the garage.
Sealey, who is black, admitted to using gasoline to burn her 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier in her driveway and to painting a racial epithet on a metal garage door.
In August, she pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. In exchange for her plea, the government agreed to drop one count of using a firearm to commit a felony. That charge carries a mandatory 10-year prison sentence.
Tin said the outcome was appropriate for Sealey, who has four children.
"My client and everyone in the community are looking for closure," he said.
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I bet you're right.
Did she have a sex-change operation?
--Boris
Ha! Good catch.
"Hating after 'closure' makes you a hate-aholic."
- Florence King
National Review
"The Misanthrope's Corner"
July 1, 2002
Non Viloent,Causes no pemenant physical harm,hhmmm Darn shame. If they still did we could use'm as target practice for all those lovely over ripened tomatoes(snicker)
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