Lawyers: Deal reached in 22-year-old kidnapping case
Posted on 06/18/2002 2:40:31 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Lawyers: Deal reached in 22-year-old kidnapping case
06/18/2002
NEW YORK - A couple charged with kidnapping a baby 22 years ago and raising him as their son has reached a plea deal that would spare them lengthy prison terms, defense lawyers said Tuesday.
Barry Smiley, 56, would get two to six years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty to second-degree kidnapping, said his lawyer, Raymond Colon.
Judith Smiley, 55, would admit to second-degree kidnapping and first-degree custodial interference for a six-month prison term and five years' probation, according to her attorney, Steven Brill.
AP Matthew Propp, center, waits with Judith and Barry Smiley outside the courtroom. |
Asked why the defense team agreed to the deal rather than go to trial, Colon said: "I don't play poker with other people's money or with other people's lives."
Brill added that because the couple have health issues, they didn't want to risk long prison sentences. Judith Smiley is confined to a wheelchair.
The Smileys are accused of fleeing with the boy to Albuquerque, N.M., in 1980, after a judge declared their adoption was invalid because the birth mother had not given her full consent. They called the boy Matthew Propp.
Propp, now 23, has said he loves the Smileys and that he did not want them to go to prison.
"He's crushed by it," Brill said of the plea deal. "His parents, the parents he knows, are going to jail."
The Smileys each could have faced up to 25 years behind bars if convicted at trial. A spokesman for the district attorney confirmed only that the couple was due to appear in court later Tuesday.
AP Matthew Propp, left, greets his biological father, Anthony Russini, outside the courthouse. |
Propp's maternal grandfather had arranged for the Smileys to adopt the baby at birth.
But when the child was 15 months old, a judge ruled the adoption illegal because the biological mother, Deborah Gardner, had not given her consent. Gardner, who now lives in the Miami area, has not involved herself in the current case.
The Smileys moved to Albuquerque with the boy and lived under the aliases Bennett and Mary Propp.
The Smileys surrendered last year on charges they had kidnapped Matthew Propp, who still lives in Albuquerque. They sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that they are in poor health and that they acted out of love for the child.
Asked if the Smileys offered an apology as part of the deal, Brill said they had not but "If they ask them to give one they certainly will.
"They've said they're sorry from the very beginning," he said.
Son caught in middle as pair goes on trial in his 1979 abduction
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/701349/posts
After caring for the baby for 15-months and raising him as their own, a judge rules against them. These decisions are always tough, but in court the birth mother always seems to prevail, no matter what. It must have been a heart wrenching decision for them to do what they did, knowing that they would be someday found. However, their son is an adult and no longer can be taken from them, and they now seem at peace with their choice. BTW, they were found out when the son applied for a birth certificate so that he could become a police officer and they told him the story. I'd say they raised a fine son.
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