A Clinton County man who prosecutors say helped a doctor supply young people with drugs and alcohol for sexual favors, entered a guilty plea yesterday, just three days into his trial.
\nGilbert J. Stevenson Jr., 29, of Avis said in exchange for the plea agreement deal, he would be willing to testify against Dr. Barry Bender, 55, during the Tyrone man\u2019s April trial in Hollidaysburg.
\n\u201cThe long and the short of it is is that we got through three days of trial,\u201d said Michael T. Madeira, a senior deputy attorney general who prosecuted the case for the commonwealth. \u201cThe last thing we had to put on in the trial was the defendant\u2019s confession. I think that\u2019s when he realized that he would probably be far better off if he would cooperate with the commonwealth and admit what he done to the court.\u201d
\nThe plea arrangement calls for Stevenson to enter guilty pleas to six counts of delivery of cocaine, and single charges of delivery of ecstasy, delivery of PCP, conspiracy to deliver controlled substances, providing alcohol to minors and corrupting the morals of minors.. In exchange, the commonwealth will \u201cnolle prose,\u201d or drop, several other charges, including sexual exploitation of children.
\nStevenson\u2019s attorney, Peter Campana, said Stevenson agreed to the plea agreement because prosecutors fashioned it to exclude the sex offenses, of which he said Stevenson was innocent.
\n\u201cI\u2019m thrilled with the outcome of this case,\u201d Madeira told The Daily Herald this morning. \u201cThe deal that has been reached is something I\u2019m pleased about because I still have a trial against the chief perpetrator.\u201d
\nMadeira said the victims in the case are also in agreement with the deal.
\n\u201cThe witnesses would have loved not to have testified in this case,\u201d he said. \u201cThey would have loved to see him take this before. Some of them didn\u2019t want to testify because they felt some kind of loyalty or friendship to him. But everybody knew that what he did was wrong.\u201d
\nAccording to Madeira, the plea worked out is an open plea, meaning the sentencing judge, Hiram Carpenter, has the ability to fashion any sentence he wishes, within state sentencing guidelines. Madeira and Campana will both have the opportunity to make whatever arguments they want during a hearing to determine what incarceration sentence Stevenson will receive.
\n\u201cThe statutory maximum on the entire case for Stevenson equaled out to about 219 years,\u201d said Madeira, \u201cbut the reality is the statutory maximum is just that.
\n\u201cIf the judge decided to stack everything on top of another, we\u2019re probably looking along the lines of 20 years. It\u2019s entirely up to the judge.\u201d
\nHowever, Stevenson\u2019s sentencing will not occur until after Bender\u2019s trial, scheduled to begin April 14. Madeira said if Stevenson, during Bender\u2019s trial, decided not to cooperate with the commonwealth, the plea agreement may be rejected or the terms may change.
\n\u201cWe would have two choices in a situation like that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe could either revoke the plea and go back to trial, or, more precisely and what is likely to happen, we would tell the court that he reneged on the deal and that he shouldn\u2019t receive any benefit because he did not cooperate.\u201d
\nAccording to a spokesperson from the Blair County Court Administrator\u2019s office, Bender has pre-trial conferences scheduled for March 14 and 24. Jury selection for the case is scheduled for March 31.
\nOfficials believe Bender\u2019s trial will take about ten days to complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Clinton County man who prosecutors say helped a doctor supply young people with drugs and alcohol for sexual favors, entered a guilty plea yesterday, just three days into his trial. Gilbert J. Stevenson Jr., 29, of Avis said in exchange for the plea agreement deal, he would be willing to testify against Dr. Barry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}