It Seems Like a Setback, But It’s a Massive Step Forward
An update on Brittany Sheehan’s case
I last wrote publicly about Brittany’s case at RedState, documenting her arraignment in Madera County on December 13 and the fact that it sure seemed like her daughter’s father was using the Madera County District Attorney’s office as his taxpayer-funded family law attorney.
A lot has happened since then that I won’t go into detail about here, but the TL;DR is that Brittany is currently in the Madera County Jail and has a pre-trial hearing on Monday, March 28, and a Preliminary Hearing (a/k/a probable cause hearing) on Friday, April 1; that her original attorney is no longer practicing law; and we’ve been able to secure the services of the top-ranked criminal defense attorney in California but need everyone’s help QUICKLY to make sure his bill is covered.
You can donate to Brittany’s legal defense fund right now in several ways — through the Integrity and Justice PAC, or sending it to me using PayPal or Venmo (please note that it’s for Brittany’s legal fees).
$5,320 was raised for Brittany’s attorneys fees and bail, but not all of it made its way to the bail bond agency. The person who was running Brittany’s GiveSendGo also signed as an indemnitor on her bond, but after she rejected a sexual proposition he refused to transfer the money Brittany’s friends had contributed to the bail agent. He then used passwords Brittany had shared with him so he could help handle her affairs while she was in jail and locked her out of her own Facebook account for days while he posed as her and, if his Facebook post on January 4 is to be believed, downloaded her entire Facebook history, created a website defaming her, and published a defamatory hit piece on her at a Nevada political blog (there is a pending criminal investigation into those matters so I’m not going to comment further on it).
But that wasn’t enough for him. He then had himself removed from her bond, falsely claiming that she threatened to flee, which started a chain of events in which she was arrested by a bail agent and cuffed in front of her son (who was visiting for Spring Break) then driven to the Madera County Jail. That bond was exonerated, meaning that unless she gets someone to post a new $100,000 bond — and none of the fees paid toward the old bond are transferrable — or is granted pre-trial release at a hearing scheduled for Monday morning, she’ll be in jail until her probable cause hearing on April 1. If she wins at the preliminary hearing stage, she’ll be able to go straight home. If she does not, her attorney will argue for a bond reduction and we’ll have to find a way to get her bailed out and legally back to Nevada.
(We have been working on getting that $100,000 bond and transfer to Nevada for about a week, but due to circumstances beyond my control or Brittany’s control, and having nothing to do with her, we haven’t been able to get that accomplished.)
When I spoke to her this afternoon, her spirits were high and she is so grateful for all of the support she’s getting from friends and family. While obviously she does not want to be in jail, she believes that in the end this whole event served to get her a much better attorney and a speedy preliminary hearing, so it’s worth it.
We are working on getting a lawpay link from the attorney’s office so people can also contribute that way as well. When you contribute using lawpay, the funds go directly to the attorney.
Please share this information with everyone concerned about Brittany, and keep praying and holding positive thoughts!