Chapter 15: Awaiting Trial and A Plea deal for the Victim

There is nothing normal about this story. A victim of a violent crime should not have to be the only person who is facing legal charges surrounding a particular event. I, as the victim, of an assault by Ana, should not have been asked to have to accept a plea to a lesser crime. I had been by myself, minding my own business, at my home when I was assaulted by Ana the perpetrator. 

That is what happened but it is not what Ana was able to convince the police detectives in Durham had happened. 

In May of 2005, I was released with no place to go and no clothing or anything to my name other than the few items - books and such - that were sent to me during the 9 months I was in jail. 

All my belongings, everything that I had owned when I lived on Holloway Street was gone. It was disposed of. This included things that could not be replaced. All the photographs that represented precious memories of the beautiful life I had known, photographs of the ones I had loved - Lynn and Celta (I will discuss them later in this book) ... all that was thrown away and lost forever. 

No trace of the beautiful and successful life I had once known remained... It was as if it never happened!

My lawyer, a public defender, could have secured my clothing during the 9 months when I was held in jail as evidence that I had been assaulted and was bleeding as a result of the physical assault by Ana, the wife of Jimmy Vecchione. He failed to do that and told me after I was released that this clothing could not be tested or used as evidence because I wore it outside when I was released! 

We could on lawyers to think about things like this!

I was ashamed to be seen leaving a jail. So, I hoped that no one could tell that was where I was coming from. Eventually, I made it to the Urban Ministries shelter where I would stay when I was able to get inside and a bed was available. At other times, I had to sleep outside if I could find a place to sleep at all. 

It isn't easy to sleep outside. It's hard to know where one is allowed to sleep. Many nights I was up all night. 

Sometimes I would join others who couldn't get inside anywhere and sleep in a parking deck or on the lawn of a nearby church. 

I would at times go to Duke University and find a way into the computer labs which seemed to be open all night. There was a particular room that was near the computer lab and hardly used at all. There were couches in there and I tried to sleep there. I would become very sleepy. I always felt uncomfortable and like I didn't belong there. I expected to be further shamed as a "homeless person" and asked to leave. 

One night I was outside on the lawn at Duke West campus and started walking away from there after climbing over a short wall. It did not seem like a fenced in area and there were no signs saying "No tresspassing." 

I was stopped by the police and asked for ID. To be overwhelming disbelief, there was a warrant for my arrest. 

I had been charged with obtaining property using the credit card of someone else - a friend named Kathy. The purchase was less than $15 but it was charged as a felony. 

This was unbelievable. What happened was that the web hosting company Godaddy.com had the credit card of a friend of mine, Kathy, on file. When she paid for the registration of the domain for the poetry magazine Word Salad Poetry Magazine, she input her own credit card into the system. One might think that this would not work as the credit card was not in my name. 

Anyway, the domain had come up for renewal and I was still dealing with being homeless, having been in jail, and etc. I was not doing anything to maintain a website at that time. Godaddy went through all the credit cards on file and the credit card for Kathy, who was just a friend who intended to pay for hosting for just one time, that was billed by Godaddy. 

I had not given them permission to do this. I did not realize that her credit card was in my account and that it would be billed. This was an honest mistake. It was not even remotely willful. It was accidental. I had a falling out with Kathy and that might be why she decided to go to the police and report this as a crime. 

Wouldn't it be easier to just explain it to the company that this was an honest mistake, an accident? No, instead she charged me with a felony. 

So, I ended up spending another month in jail. I had the same lawyer on the more serious matter that had not yet gone to trial. I had explained to him the accident and how it happened. This should have been easy to resolve with all the criminal charges just being dropped. It was an accident. 

Instead, my lawyer, after I had been in jail another month said he was going to enter a plea to misdemeanor larcenry and I didn't have to even be in court since it was a misdemeanor. I was so traumatized that I didn't fight and argue that he should have done better than that. 

I then moved to Chapel Hill and stayed at the homeless shelter there. Chapel Hill was much safer. It didn't take too long before I could get a bed that would be held for me. Initially, I had to sleep on the floor. There were times I was out all night and was on the street, unable to find a place where I could sleep. 

I had been going to therapy at the Orange County Mental Health Center in Chapel Hill and then at Freedom House Recovery Center where I saw David Donlon. I had been traumatized by everything but it would be many years later before I started trauma therapy. 

A Plea Deal for the Victim

Eventually, at some time in June or July of 2006, I called my lawyer from the UNC campus and was told that I had to come to court as soon as I could get there! 

I had seen my lawyer on one occassion before this happened. He had said that I would have to testify and no one would believe that I was capable of the crime. In retrospect, I should have been asking him to see what he could do about charging Ana with assaulting me and filing false charges that destroyed my life and my reputation. 

Anyway, I found a bus that runs from UNC to the West Campus of Duke University in Durham. I got off the bus and walked as fast as I could away from the bus stop, away from Duke and in the direction of the courthouse. This was a couple of miles where I was rushing to figure out what was going to happen. 

I had already had that experience long ago of missing a court date and was terrified of failing to appear. Yet, I had no idea what to expect. 

I made it into the courthouse and to the courtroom where I was directed to go by my lawyer. I was then ambushed by him in the hallway outside the courtroom. The prosecutor was right there. 

He couldn't even take me aside to a private room and talk about what was going to happen or what option I had. 

They were dropping the 2nd degree sexual offense and I was being asked to plead guilty to 2nd degree kidnapping. There would be no jail time other than time served and probation. 

I was shocked. I was in disbelief. He had said that no jury would convict me. He was supposed to be a good lawyer. He had said that he could not believe that anything happened like Ana had described. 

Now, he was threatening me with taking this deal or I could spend 10 years in prison! I was terrified. It had been traumatic enough to go to jail at all. Plus, no matter how much I explained things, the police were unwilling to budge and were convinced that I was guilty of what Ana claimed despite them seeing me covered in bloody clothing that matched my story exactly!

I must have indicated to my lawyer that I was going to go along with this plea deal - this was all being communicated in the hallway with the prosecutor right there. 

I remember looking at her and having a pleading look that said "you don't actually believe I could have done this?"

She didn't even want to testify. The witnesses who would back up my story must have been convinced by the landlord Jimmy not to testify. They had been eager to testify to the fact that nothing happened to Ana and to tell the same story they told the first responders, the police who arrived in response to my 911 call.

I recall walking toward into the courtroom toward the front and about to face the judge with my lawyer next to me. He falsely believed that he did a good job. 

I was not asked if I was on any medication that would interfere with me entering into a plea deal or if I had a mental illness that would interfere with this... not to my recollection or ability to process what was happening. 

I had decided that I can't go through with this as I walked into the courtroom. 

My mouth was dry and I could barely form any audible words. 

When asked if I was satisfied with my legal representation, I began with "I don't know..." 

The judge couldn't detect my desire to get out of the plea deal. I had felt that Ana should be going to jail and facing criminal charges, not me. 

When asked "are you in fact guilty?" I answered "well, that is what he told me to say for the purpose of this plea deal" pointing at my lawyer. I was trying to say that he was coaching me to lie. My lawyer was suborning perjory.  

I could barely articulate anything. I couldn't find a single person in that courtroom that seemed to be on my side. 

I let my lawyer shake my hand. 

As I was lead away, I tried to tell the police officers of the court who needed to draw blood for dna records that I didn't do anything and this seems like I plead guilty to a crime. 

At no point had the topic of what really happened on October 1, 2004 been mentioned. No specific details at all were discussed! 

My lawyer had ambushed me just minutes earlier. What was the rush? 

The last thing my lawyer or anyone wanted me to do was to think about the matter at all. I was not in the right psychological mindset to process what had happened. If ever the question of whether a mental illness would interfere with someone entering into a plea deal applied to anyone, this was that situation. 

The entire experience of being assaulted and then falsely accused of this crime, being held in jail, being homeless after that, was profoundly traumatic. I was dealing with Post-traumatic stress disorder, Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.   

At about this same time period, I would get an opportunity to have housing through a program called Shelter Plus Care. This is for persons with a mental illness or other diagnosis/disability and who have been homeless for at least two years. Someone I knew from the Mental Health system helped make this possible. 

I was also awarded Social Security Disability Insurance with over two years of back payments coming as one lump sum. It was about $30,000 or more and my lawyer in that disability case received about a third of that - so he received $10,000. That is how lawyers help people get approved for SSI (Social Security Insurance) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). 

I would also start receiving a monthly check from the government. My  protion of the rent was based on the income I was receiving from the government. The Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Orange County Housing Authority and an agency that administers "Shelter Plus Care" would pay the rest of the cost of my rent and they would pay that to the landlord. 

One might think that this part of the story involving the case was over. In my mind, I could barely process what had happened. I NEVER stopped trying to find ways to change the outcome of this legal matter... eventually facing barriers such as having accepted a plea deal and the statute of limitations running out. 

I would not give up on trying to reverse what had happened. To this day, in 2024, as I write this, I am still affected by this matter. I will discuss this in the next chapter.