Voncile Ford said repeatedly that she didn’t beat up her former boyfriend’s 5-year-old son. In February, a jury of Ford’s peers didn’t believe her. They found her guilty of attempted assault in the second degree, a felony. But before she
Voncile Ford said repeatedly that she didn’t beat up her former boyfriend’s 5-year-old son.
In February, a jury of Ford’s peers didn’t believe her. They found her guilty of attempted assault in the second degree, a felony.
But before she was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail by Fifth Circuit Court Judge Clifford Nakea, her attorney, public defender James Itamura, took exception to the verdict.
Itamura said that there had only been two verdicts in the approximately 100 cases he’s tried before juries in which he felt the wrong decision was rendered, and Ford’s case was one of them.
“Five percent of people convicted of crime in the United States are innocent. That’s approximately 50,000 people. It happens,” Itamura said. “There is no reason for her (Ford) to be accused. She loved the little boy. She did not do what the jury found her guilty of.
“I intend to appeal.”
But Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, Kaua`i County deputy prosecutor, saw the facts differently.
The victim, “very vulnerable” and “only 5 years old,” suffered “extensive injuries” and “excruciating pain,” Iseri-Carvalho said. She said he was “too frightened to move” after the assault and “cried himself to sleep.”
Iseri-Carvalho said Ford “has exhibited no remorse. She has a prior violent offense (involving alleged abuse of a family member). She twice failed to complete Alternatives to Violence programs. This offense took place while she was on probation.”
Iseri-Carvalho asked the judge to impose the maximum five-year sentence on the defendant. Nakea then sentenced Ford to a lighter sentence of five years probation with one year to be served at Kaua`i Community Correctional Center.
Despite Itamura’s challenge of the decision of the jurors, Nakea said he couldn’t overturn it. He added there is “enough evidence for them to find as they did.”
Ford and a female family member in the audience began sobbing as Ford was handcuffed and placed in the dock with other prisoners.
“I guess it was a fair sentence,” Iseri-Carvalho said afterward. “Her defense was it wasn’t me or it was an accident, but … she already had a conviction for a previous violent offense.”
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
