VoyForums

Sunday, November 29, 2009 08:28:12am Ireland Time [ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 17:31:37 12/28/08 Sun GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Judge says no to cut in bail for woman who gave money to IRA (The Mississippi Press)

Judge says no to cut in bail

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

By GARY McELROY


MOBILE A judge refused Monday to reduce Jamie Kellam Letson's $500,000 bail, cautioning that the murder defendant has shown an ability to "illegally amass financial resources through dishonesty and theft."

In an eight-page order, Mobile County Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter acknowledged that while Letson's bail was five to seven times the usual amount, it was not too high in her case.

"Simply put, the factors here indicate that Letson is a substantial flight risk," Youngpeter ruled.

Letson, 47, was arrested and charged with murder in November in connection with the 1980 fatal shooting of 18-year-old University of South Alabama student Katherine Foster. The case has been one of Mobile's best-known criminal mysteries.

Letson and Foster had been friends at college and prior to that as girls growing up in Pascagoula, according to court records.

Letson has remained in the Mobile County Metro Jail.

The facts in the case and Letson's history since the slaying "weigh in favor" of a considerable bail amount, the judge wrote, including the following:

She has prior convictions involving "dishonesty and theft," the judge wrote, including stealing from relatives.

Although she has sisters in Gulf Breeze, Fla., and in the Ward community of west-central Alabama, during a Thursday bond hearing, neither acknowledged being particularly close to her.

Her ties to Mobile are "almost nonexistent," according to the judge, and no one in the community spoke in her behalf during the Thursday hearing. Her only obvious tie anywhere, the judge noted, was to the Jackson, Miss., women's shelter where she was arrested.

In 2004, Letson, when facing prison time on theft charges, stole from a friend with the intention of using the money to flee. This sug gests, the judge wrote, "that there is a real and substantial risk" that she would seek to avoid a lengthy prison sentence if convicted of murder.

The judge said, however, that he was unable to conclude that Letson would pose a threat to the Foster family if released. Foster's relatives testified Thursday that Letson repeatedly attempted in 2003 to establish a relation ship with Foster's niece, who greatly resembled the dead woman as a young girl.

Youngpeter did not address in his order the prosecution's contentions during last week's hearing that Letson had in the past contributed money to the militant Irish Republican Army, or that her connections to Ireland suggested she could flee there and hide.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ VoyUser Login ] Not required to post.
Post a public reply to this message | Go post a new public message
 * Notice: Posting problems? [ Click here ]
 * HTML allowed in marked fields.
* Message subject (required):

* Name (required):

  Expression (Optional mood/title along with your name) Examples: (happy, sad, The Joyful, etc.) help)

  E-mail address (required):

* Type your message here:

Choose Message Icon: [ View Emoticons ]

Notice: Copies of your message may remain on this and other systems on internet. Please be respectful.

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.