Three out of 110 charges ain’t bad
Carroll Roy Bond’s Oct. 29 sentence on three counts of illegal slot machine possession and operation may not seem like a lot when you consider he was charged with 110 counts.
But the prosecutor on the case says the result was just right.
“Practically speaking, we never would have been able to prosecute 110 counts,” said Jill Savage, an assistant state’s attorney. “It would take a week to try that case.”
In addition to the time factor, Savage said it would have required several witnesses to testify on each count.
Savage said she was surprised that Stephen Tully, Bond’s attorney, was interested in a plea since he had turned down an offer just a week before. In fact, Tully began the trial sounding like it was a foregone conclusion that his client would walk on all of the counts.
Bond’s sentence of probation before judgement, three years of unsupervised probation, and a prohibition against possession any more illegal slot machines is less than 3 percent of what he could have been convicted of in a trial.
“It does seem like a drop in the bucket but, from a practical sense, it had an impact,” Savage said.
Should Bond face additional charges over the next three years, he could go to jail for up to one year for each of the three counts he was sentenced on.
“Is it a little anticlimactic to plead the case out at 11 o’clock?” Savage mused. “Yeah, a little bit.”