Connecticut courts kick Julie Amero one last time

by Steve Ragan - Nov 24 2008, 19:46

The case of Julie Amero is over. After four years the Amero’s, both Julie and her husband Wes, can start to put the pieces of their lives back together. Yet the farce that was the criminal trial against Julie ended with one final slap to the face, she lost her teaching license and was ordered to pay a $100.00 USD fine.

The story behind the case starts in 2004. Amero was using a computer in a seventh grade class to email her husband. Before she sent the email, she left to use the restroom and came back into the classroom, finding students watching a hairstyle ad on the PC. This is where the trouble began.

The sites started to display pop-up advertising which contained pornographic images. Amero left the classroom after several failed attempts to stop the images and keep children away to seek help. The Vice Principal, as well as other staff members, came to the classroom but did nothing. Later in an interview with the New York Times, the vice principal explained that the computer did not have adequate protection against Malware and proper filtering software in place. The school district’s IT manager later confirmed this when he reported than an ordered update was sent to the wrong person.

The case was highly debated online, and many called the charges a joke. Amero has very little knowledge about computers. What little knowledge she did have was limited to the sending and receiving of email online, according to her husband.

After all was said and done, Julie was convicted of four counts of ‘risking injury to a child’ and faced forty years in prison. However, when it came time for sentencing, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Hillary B. Strackbein tossed out the conviction and ordered a new trial, stating that the witness presented by the state provided erroneous testimony. "The jury may have relied, at least in part, on that false information."

The judge cited a forensic computer analysis conducted by the State Police Crime Lab to support the argument that the verdict should be set aside, the Courant said. Judge Strackbein said in the ruling that the lab report “contradicts the testimony by the state's computer witness.”

Things started to look up for Julie, yet, she was left in limbo. Because a new trial was an option, she was not completely free. Earlier this year, Julie’s case got some added attention from reporter Rick Green.

"Over the last year, I'm told, Amero has been hospitalized for stress and has lost at least one job because her employer didn't like her arrest record. She is on medication. So she waits, declining to speak publicly, for the state to do something." wrote reporter Rick Green of The Courant regarding the case. "I tried to find out what plans the state has for this poor woman, who was charged, arrested and convicted on false information, shoddy police work and an unwillingness by anyone — from Norwich school officials to state prosecutors — to admit that they had made a mistake".

This is when Green tracked down Michael Regan, and was told: “The Amero case is not a high priority for us. We have other cases down here that are much more important.”

Well on Friday,November 21, the case was once again a high priority. The prosecution was ready to restart the case and go to trial.

“…She stood tall, proud, and unashamed as the prosecutor took his final shots and sliced away the pound of flesh that the state demanded to end this horrible ordeal. In the ten minutes it took [it] to be over, I could do nothing but sit there, watch and listen to the defense and prosecution, proclaim that each was ready to retry the case,” Julie’s husband, Wes, wrote on his blog.

“In the end [the judge] asserted that picking the scab of an old wound was counter productive. In that moment, I felt a certain degree of exoneration for Julie. The arguments stopped, the judge passed on the final details of a One Hundred dollar fine and revocation of Julies teaching rights, and as quickly as that, it was over.”

The thought that she is now blocked from her choice of profession, she lost her child, and suffered countless sleepless nights, over a string of mistakes, and yet still had to pay a fine like a criminal is horrendous.

Why has the school system remained blameless in this trial? A school Vice Principal seeing the images did nothing. An IT administrator, with exact knowledge of why the computer was so easily infected with Malware, despite the shipping error, failed to act.

While it is good news to see Julie finally leave the state of limbo, the final slap to the face of a fine and loss of her teaching credentials is a low blow.

“Julie and I would like to thank the literally thousands of people who came to Julie’s defense with positive words of encouragement and donations of time and money. Without all of which, it is doubtful that Julie would be a free woman now. The life we knew and loved is over. Now is a time of rebuilding and redefinition. Hopefully when we look back, we’ll still see the same positive encouragement we have come to know and love from all of you,” added Wes.

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