{"id":18855,"date":"2013-10-15T14:01:54","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T18:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=18855"},"modified":"2013-12-18T11:25:28","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T16:25:28","slug":"former-jurist-slammed-with-state-prison-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=18855","title":{"rendered":"Former jurist slammed with state prison term"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rita A. Arnold ordered to spend 16 to 32 months in jail\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Former<\/a>

Former Magisterial District Judge Rita A. Arnold received a 16- to 32-month state prison sentence Tuesday in Chester County Court.<\/p><\/div>\n

Stressing that \u201cthe oath we take to tell the truth\u201d must mean something, a visiting judge issued an aggravating-range sentence to an embattled former Chester County magisterial district judge:\u00a0 16 to 32 months in state prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In imposing the harsh term Tuesday on Rita A. Arnold, who once served as magisterial district judge for the Downingtown area, Senior Judge John L. Braxton said he took no pleasure in the penalty but stressed that it was warranted by Arnold\u2019s pattern of conduct.<\/p>\n

Arnold\u2019s attorney, Heidi F. Eakin, had argued for a county sentence if Braxton rejected her plea for probation. Eakin said house arrest would enable Arnold, who recently underwent a double mastectomy, to receive the eight-month regimen of\u00a0 chemotherapy she learned last week would be necessary to deal with her spreading cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very disappointed with the sentence, and we will be pursuing our appellate rights, especially in light of her health condition,\u201d said Eakin after the proceeding. She said the penalty shocked Arnold, who had surgery Sept. 24 and \u201cis still in considerable pain.\u201d Braxton ordered Arnold to be taken into custody immediately, and Eakin said she would also be filing a motion for bail, pending the appeal.<\/p>\n

Braxton said he was not unsympathetic to Arnold\u2019s medical condition; however, he said he was taken aback by the protracted manner in which Arnold attempted to cover up her crimes. He said that he believed Arnold could get the appropriate treatment in prison and that the sentence did not represent the end of Arnold\u2019s life, but rather \u201ca turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing the judge, Arnold said she had worked in the court system since the age of 18. \u201cBeing a judge was my dream,\u201d she said. The 57-year-old former jurist echoed a theme expressed by three supporters who spoke in her behalf: that she had paid dearly for her error in judgment, losing her career, her pension, her reputation, and her health. \u201cI\u2019m truly sorry for the embarrassment I\u2019ve caused\u2026,\u201d she said, urging the court\u2019s mercy and compassion.<\/p>\n

Arnold pleaded guilty in June to obstruction of justice and tampering with public records. According to the criminal complaint, she concealed a summary citation state police issued to one of her sons in January 2010 to protect him from a potential probation violation. After repeated questions over a couple of months from police about the docketing delay, Arnold lied about its status, and then, without the required approval of Chester County President Judge James P. MacElree II, improperly docketed the citation and ordered an employee to transfer the citation to another court, where it was dismissed, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Both Braxton and Senior Deputy Attorney General Susan L. DiGiacomo pointed out that once the wrongdoing was discovered, Arnold, who spent 19 years on the bench, had multiple opportunities to admit her misconduct but failed to do so. Instead, Braxton pointed out that she \u201cconcocted\u201d three different versions of events to try and conceal her guilt.<\/p>\n

Eakin suggested that Arnold got \u201cvery poor\u201d legal advice. She said if Arnold had refused to explain her position, which would have been her right, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Braxton said he was even more troubled by the fact that Arnold tried to get her longtime office manager to lie, and when the woman refused to do that, she tried to get her fired. \u201cThe people walking on the street of this county need to know that if they do the right thing, they\u2019re not going to be punished,\u201d he said, citing Arnold\u2019s treatment of her employee as \u201cthe tipping point\u201d in his assessment of the appropriate penalty.<\/p>\n

Arnold disagreed with Braxton\u2019s description. \u201cI didn\u2019t want her fired,\u201d she said of the 50-year-old woman she hired 33 years ago. \u201cI just wanted her to be sent someplace else.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her sentencing memorandum, DiGiacomo said Arnold\u2019s attempt to fire the employee came after she convinced the Court of Judicial Discipline to let her keep her \u201cdream\u201d job at a sanctions hearing in July 2012. After Arnold received a month\u2019s unpaid suspension, she retaliated against the employee, \u201cshowing her true colors,\u201d DiGiacomo wrote. \u201cArnold\u2019s continued actions in misleading the inquiry of the Court and subsequent investigation showed no respect for the law and highlighted her thoughts of power in her own small kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, about eight months after Arnold returned to her elected post, she resigned after state agents from the Pennsylvania Attorney General\u2019s Office arrested her for the same offenses. DiGiacomo referred comment to officials in the state Attorney General\u2019s Office, where officials were not immediately available.<\/p>\n

Braxton made Arnold, who once presided over cases in Birmingham Township, eligible for Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive, a state program that could shave about 5 \u00bd months off of her sentence, court officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rita A. Arnold ordered to spend 16 to 32 months in jail\u00a0 By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times Stressing that \u201cthe oath we take to tell the truth\u201d must mean something, a visiting judge issued an aggravating-range sentence to an embattled former Chester County magisterial district judge:\u00a0 16 to 32 months in state prison. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[2634,3732,1660,3887,3733],"class_list":["post-18855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-chester-county-president-judge-james-p-macelree-ii","tag-heidi-f-eakin","tag-rita-a-arnold","tag-senior-deputy-attorney-general-susan-l-digiacomo","tag-senior-judge-john-l-braxton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}