Jane Doe No More (48 page)

Donna and John, listening on speakerphone, looked at each other.

Why is it that the bad guys always catch a break?

“What would you and John be comfortable with, Donna?”

She didn’t hesitate: “Twenty years!
No
parole.”

“That would mean he’d have to plead to twenty-five years . . . and we’re not sure that Regan would do that.”

It was clear to Donna and John that although Regan was indicating a desire to plead, it would be only under certain conditions. There wouldn’t be a hearing on May 8—that much was clear. Moreover, Regan was playing things as if
he
held the cards. And depending on where you sat, in certain respects he did.

“We also want him to register as a sexual offender,” Donna added.

“Not sure about that. I’ll look into it. You may be able to make that a condition of your plea.”

John Palomba mentioned that he had read an article about a case in New York where a perpetrator had not been charged (because authorities did not yet know who he was), but his DNA profile (left at the scene of the crime) had been charged with rape before the statute ran out. Thus, when they finally apprehended him (if ever), they could go back and charge the man with the crime—basically charge the DNA profile as if it was a person and put a face on it later.

“We’ll look into that.”

“Tell me about that picture of you Neil found? It’s old, right?”

“No, no,” Donna said. “It was 2005.”

“John [Connelly] or myself will call you back when we have some news, Donna. Hang in there.”

They hung up. A few hours later, Donna’s contact inside the SAO called back.

“The hearing has been postponed for two weeks.”

“Why?” Donna asked.

“It appears the attorneys are working hard toward a plea.”

John and Donna set up a meeting with John Connelly for the following afternoon.

When they arrived at three o’clock, Pudgie and Neil were there, as well as Maureen Norris. Donna felt as though Connelly wanted to speak to her about considering a plea in her case too.

According to Donna’s notes, Connelly immediately started talking about “bundling” the cases together, which was what Regan’s attorneys from Waterbury had traveled north to discuss. They wanted to see if, within one plea bargain, they could package all of Regan’s cases (in Connecticut) together and come to some sort of agreement on Donna’s case, Regan’s former coworker, and the fifty-year-old woman from 1981.

“We should seriously consider this,” Connelly said. “But I don’t want to lead on to his defense team that we might be interested in something of this nature.”

Donna brought up her concern that perhaps Regan would get off on the kidnapping charge in her case because, as she put it, “the victim had not been moved.”

Connelly agreed. It would be tough to make that charge stick. And if they couldn’t, then what charge were they left with?

“The defense will also argue that the DNA was not obtained properly in your case, Donna, because, according to Regan, it was consensual sex . . . If we go for a plea of twenty to twenty-five years, which is the max, they have no reason to agree. They might as well fight it out at trial. We need to be realistic here. Fifteen years might be the right number.”

Donna was floored. The rights that the perpetrator of such violent crimes had at his disposal were enough to make her sick.

I was so frustrated. It was maddening that John Regan could not be arrested for the crime of sexual assault in my case, and the ripple effect was that the SA couldn’t risk going to trial. Regan had powerful attorneys. Connelly said that if Regan was arrested for rape in my case it would have been a slam dunk and he would have gotten forty years. The charges of kidnapping in my case were going to be difficult to prove. I felt sick learning that his New York and Connecticut sentences would be served concurrently. Ultimately, I had little say and had to defer to the SA and my attorney. This whole experience compelled me to fight to remove the statute of limitations on sexual assault cases involving DNA evidence even more. It was ridiculous. Our laws needed to match the science and technology available. After all, when these particular laws were written, no one knew about DNA evidence.

“What does that mean, though?” Donna asked. She wanted hard numbers. “Let’s say the guy gets twenty years. In the end, what does twenty years actually amount to?”

“It means that he would serve, for your case, twelve and three-quarter years out of fifteen. We could add on potentially five years of ‘special parole’ and five more years of probation. They might go for that . . .”

The other major factor here was that even if Regan was convicted at trial in New York, Connelly would be forced to exclude that conviction from Donna’s case because it happened after Donna’s assault.

Score another round for the bad guys.

“And if your case is tried first,” Connelly explained, “they couldn’t use it in the New York case because they are not similar enough.”

Neil piped in, saying, “The victim in what we’ll call Regan’s first case—in 1981—would
never
testify. I am certain of that.”

“I have to leave for a few days, but I plan to be in touch with Regan’s lawyers on May 15. Think about this seriously, Donna, John,” Connelly said, looking at the two of them, “but let’s not tell anyone we’re discussing it.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY
-
SIX

The Narrow Gate

On Friday, May 19, 2006, John Regan was ushered into court wearing a blue denim jacket, a green, prison-issued two-piece jumper that resembled hospital scrubs, handcuffs, and shackles. He looked old, well beyond his forty-nine years. Regan had dark, puffy half-circles under his eyes and a desultory look, his face ashen and devoid of any sentiment besides embarrassment, perhaps—a look more of a man accepting punishment, rather than taking responsibility. He never looked at anyone except his attorneys (no family was present at Regan’s request, because, he later said through his attorneys, he “didn’t want to submit them to the media”).

In what some reporters later tagged as a “surprise move,” Regan pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping in the case of Lindsey Ferguson; a plea under what prosecutor Jim Murphy said was “not a deal” or “lesser charge.” Sentencing was slated for July, but word was that John Regan was only going to get twelve years.

“Basically, we achieved the highest conviction without having to put the victim on the stand,” Murphy astutely explained to the media. “She was ready to go, but we were able to obtain the same result without having to put her through that trauma and confront Mr. Regan a second time.”

A win at trial, Murphy said later, was not going to yield any more time than the plea bargain. This decision to plead the case out was the best deal for everyone involved. He was certain of it.

“I was fine with it,” Lindsey said later. “And knowing that I never had to see him again made me very happy.” Lindsey had not only bounced back from her attack, but also went on to become one of the top cross-country runners in the United States. With offers from universities all over the nation, she chose to attend Notre Dame.

With the plea agreement wrapped up, Chief Ed Moore could smile. He was satisfied with the outcome and gave credit where credit was due, telling the press, “Art Kranick and Ray Harrington are the real heroes.”

Kranick and Harrington, two underpaid and under-celebrated teachers, had done the right thing in chasing down Saratoga’s Halloween monster. Their tenacity, diligence, and courage had changed the lives of so many people, including, certainly, any potential future victims of John Regan.

Walking out of court, one of Regan’s attorneys told a small crowd of reporters that the proceeding was the “first step” in “resolving matters.” He called the New York case against his client “. . . by far the strongest.”

Back in Waterbury, Regan’s attorneys ratcheted up their defense. Through constant communication with the media, they “maintained [Regan’s] innocence” regarding the Connecticut charges.

A multiagency task force assigned to track down cases and determine if Regan could be responsible for other rapes or even murders throughout New England had come up with nothing extra with which to charge him. This boded well for Regan’s argument that both cases in Connecticut were consensual. Still, the woman from 1981, twenty-five at the time, told her story of Regan forcing her into his truck, locking the doors, and trying to make her give him oral sex. This was not a charge that would ever stick (especially if the woman wasn’t willing to testify), but it spoke to the type of crime Regan was known to commit.

In July 2006 Regan once again shuffled into a Saratoga County court, his familiar look of despair—turning away from the cameras, staring up at the sky or down to the ground—this time to hear his sentence.

The convicted criminal was given the expected twelve years. Regan stared at the flag behind the judge’s bench the entire time, never looking at anyone, almost as if he was doing the court a favor by being there. Rocky Regan had been known for his square jawline and his tough, hard build. Yet here, on this day, stood a broken man whose life had distilled down to a series of attempted sexual assaults and attempted kidnappings, a man whose actions were thankfully stopped before escalating into the unthinkable crimes of a madman. If nothing else, John Regan was a convict who would soon be forgotten by the public, labeled with a number in a system that viewed him as one more offender doing time behind bars, taking up the state’s space, spending taxpayer money.

In a predisposition plea/sentencing report filed by the Saratoga County Probation Department before Regan’s sentencing, summing up their “evaluation analysis,” probation officer Christine Pusatere and probation supervisor Mickey Mahoney called Regan’s crime a “brazen attempt to abduct a . . . student.” They said Regan’s criminal behavior “shocked and terrified an entire community,” and noted that police believed, after investigating the case (searching Regan’s van), he was prepared to “perpetrate unimaginable horror upon his young victim.” What’s important to note within this report is the fact that Regan “declined” at any time “to give a statement . . . [and] gave no indication of contrition . . . offered no apology and no regret was expressed.” Concluding the report, both probation officers agreed that “for a significant period of time, the community will be safe from the likes of John Regan . . . [whose] abominable behavior was a painful invasion of [Lindsey Ferguson’s] sense of safety and well-being . . . the type of invasion that can leave long, lasting scars . . .”

Despite the harsh reality of Regan’s crimes and the impact those crimes had on his victims and the community, Regan’s defense attorney, E. Stewart Jones, told reporters after the sentencing that his client would soon be heading back to Connecticut to plead guilty to charges that would, in turn, be exchanged for a sentence fewer than the twelve years he had been sentenced to in New York. And the Connecticut sentence, Jones stated definitively, “would run concurrently with his sentence in New York.”

Concurrent sentences. Not consecutive.

When the SAO in Connecticut heard of Jones’s claim, a spokesperson for the office said, “That’s news to us. There is no specific deal that’s been made.”

The SAO released a statement saying it was looking forward to having Regan back home and in court, where he faced the potential for one hundred years behind bars if convicted at trial.