Crash Into Me_ A Survivor's Search for Justice - Liz Seccuro [65]
CHAPTER 11
The Guilty Plea
A week or so before the scheduled trial, Worrell called me to say that Beebe wanted to plead guilty to one count of felonious aggravated sexual battery, thereby taking the other counts of rape and object sexual penetration off the table. Well, of course he did. According to sentencing guidelines, if Beebe went to trial on the two felony charges, he was looking at a maximum sentence of life in prison. Although he was not likely to get the maximum sentence, it still made sense for him to cut a deal, and he was in a good negotiating position in light of the new information. The realities that made the crime worse for me—being raped by three men—made the situation a lot easier for him. Since I had no memory of the rapes by Burgos and Messner, my credibility would be called into question by the defense, yielding reasonable doubt that perhaps my memory of Beebe’s crime was also unreliable.
Accepting the plea made sense for the Commonwealth, too. Even given Beebe’s confession on record, the other two rapes made the case against him much weaker. Drawn-out trials quickly become expensive, and there was the possibility that if he went to trial, we might not get a conviction. There was also hope that as part of the plea bargain, the Commonwealth could get Beebe to testify against Messner and Burgos, strengthening the case against them, which for now was not strong enough for an indictment. We had some statements, but not enough corroboration. If Beebe cooperated, his testimony and the information from his private investigator could be very valuable.
Negotiations for a plea deal began. In a criminal case, these negotiations don’t typically account for the victim’s wishes; a state or commonwealth can cut a deal with a defendant regardless of what a victim or victim’s family thinks. The victim is merely a witness, as I had been all along. Chapman and Worrell were kind enough to consult with me on my thoughts during the process. I am forever grateful that they brought me into the loop, although seeing just how this process worked was a bit of a shock.
First, Francis Lawrence came to Worrell and said that Beebe would agree to a plea of simple assault and serve six months. Worrell’s response was, “Are we talking about the same crime?” he later told me. Simple assault is akin to punching someone. I had to say, I admired their chutzpah.
The next deal on the table was aggravated sexual battery, carrying a sentence of one and a half years. When Worrell brought this to me, I started to weep. At this point, the whole process had been going on for nearly two years. My child had been two years old when the letter arrived and she would be four on Christmas, a scant month away. With all the fear, stress, and renewed panic I had experienced, I felt as though I had already served a long sentence myself. Although it wasn’t really up to me, and although the judge, regardless of the plea deal, can ultimately sentence the accused to any amount of time within the sentencing guidelines, I said I would feel better about a tougher sentence—maybe two years. Two years for aggravated sexual battery doesn’t sound like much, given the severity of the crime, but there were many other balls in the air at this point—we could not lose our shot at having some agency in all of this madness. It seemed to me, Mike, and the team that given the new information, this was the best we could hope for, unless the judge decided otherwise. Two years it was. And in return, William Beebe would have to provide the prosecution with information about the other two men and the rapes that occurred that night.
We flew back down to Charlottesville on the morning of November 13, 2006, the day before the scheduled plea date, and checked into the same suite at the Boar’s Head Inn where we had stayed when we