Former deputy sentenced to one day in county jail

VAN BUREN, Mo. -- A Carter County jury on Friday sentenced a former deputy to one day in the Carter County Jail after she was convicted of receiving stolen property.

The seven-woman, five-man jury began its deliberations in the punishment phase of Steffanie M. Kearbey's trial at 6:44 p.m. after hearing from four witnesses testifying on Kearbey's behalf and closing arguments from Assistant Attorney General Scott Fox and Kearbey's attorneys, Danny Moore and Steve Walsh.

At 7:07 p.m., the bailiff notified Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Pritchett there was a verdict.

As the jurors filed out of the courtroom, Kearbey's friends and family applauded. Kearbey, as well as her family and some jurors, were in tears.

Instead of setting a formal sentencing date for a later time, Moore said, the defense was waiving its right to file any appeals, as well as having a sentencing assessment report be completed by Probation and Parole.

Since Kearbey is in federal custody, Moore asked that she be "sentenced immediately."

After Pritchett asked Kearbey if she understood and was in agreement, and with there being no objections from the state, the judge imposed a term of one day in jail.

Kearbey's family and friends lined up to hug her before leaving the courthouse.

Earlier in the day, the jurors had convicted the 25-year-old Ellsinore, Mo., woman of receiving stolen property and acquitted her on charges of second-degree burglary and stealing and first-degree burglary.

The jurors reached their verdict after hearing testimony from seven witnesses, including Kearbey, who testified on her own behalf, during the three-day trial.

The jurors then heard additional testimony from Tina Wilkins, Sheila Henderson, John Cobb and Sue Leach in the penalty phase.

Wilkins, a high school counselor and lives in the Ellsinore area, said she had known Kearbey since the day she was born, as she is first cousins with her father.

Describing their relationship as "very close," Wilkins said, Kearbey was "very happy" when she was young, "always easy to get along with [and] got along with everyone."

As Kearbey entered high school, Wilkins said, there was "stuff happening in her life. Some deal with [things] differently than others.

"She had a lot of struggles, which made it difficult for her to fit in sometimes."

Kearbey, she said, was always smiling and nice to everyone.

Kearbey was "more quiet" and "tried to act other than what she was to fit in with the crowd."

While Kearbey was in high school, Wilkins said, she was working as the librarian, and they would talk at times.

Wilkins said Kearbey would get "very upset" when someone hurt her feelings. "It was easy for her to get upset," but she would "put on a brave face and act all tough,"she said.

Wilkins also talked of Kearbey's marriage and her now 5-year-old twin sons.

"Everything I seen in Steffanie as a mother, it kind of bought everything into focus for her," Wilkins said. "The only thing that mattered were those kids."

Kearbey, she said, decided "something in her life needed to change" as she wanted "better for her kids."

The twins, she said, always were "very well taken care of, clean."

Kearbey, Wilkins said, took her children to church as much as she could, wanting the best for them.

Like Wilkins, Henderson said, she also has known Kearbey since she was born.

Henderson described Kearbey as kind, giving and helpful to others.

Her marriage to Donald Forsythe, wasn't a "good relationship," Henderson said. While he started out nice, she said, Forsythe was "very mentally abusive" to Kearbey and turned her to drug use.

"She did get out of it," said Henderson, who described her as submissive and someone who had needed to make changes in her life and did.

Cobb said he was the chief operating officer for a home-health care business in Doniphan, Mo., where Kearbey worked for about five to six months caring for elderly and disabled clients.

When he made home visits, Cobb said, the clients were "always bragging on her. They loved her."

Cobb told the jurors about one client, who she bathed daily, fed and made sure food was prepared for him.

"She was always there," he said.

Having known Kearbey "all her life," Leach described her as "precious, the sweetest person you would ever meet in your life."

Leach said Kearbey was the type of person who took children fishing and taught them to put worms on the hook.

Kearbey, she said, did "special things" and loved her children.

Leach described Kearbey as being a sensitive person, and when someone did something to her, upset her very much.

As a mother of twins, Leach said, Kearbey prayed for another couple's set, one of which had died. Leach believes the other baby is alive and home today because of Kearbey's prayers.

In his closing argument, Fox asked the jurors to "balance the wishes" of the family and the needs of the state to deter others from committing similar crimes.

The jurors, he said, needed to "say anybody who does this, if you do it in our county, we are doing to hold you accountable and be punished."

Kearbey, he said, is in federal prison for sale of a firearm, and he "encouraged" the jury to sentence to her to at least five years for "all the damage she's done for all these people."

Five years in federal prison does not "satisfy the state, what good would sending her to the Missouri Department of Corrections do," Moore asked the jury.

Kearbey, he said, has been in the county jail for about eight months on these charges, and contrary to what Fox earlier said, his client doesn't get credit on her federal sentence for the time. The county jail, he said, also is not a "very pleasant place" to be.

The real question, Moore said, is whether society is better off by spending an additional $35,000 a year to house Kearbey in state prison, in addition to her five-year sentence, when the cases involve "exactly the same gun."

Does "heaping double punishment on her for the same act" make sense whenever the punishment range goes down to a $2 fine, said Moore, who told the jurors they could assess a fine.

"She was truthful up there on the stand; she admitted to what you found her guilty of," Moore said. "She didn't do anything else under the law. …"

Moore asked the jury to impose a fine, which she could pay off over the next five years, given "no more than she's done."

Walsh told the jurors it wasn't right to "double punish" her when "child abusers, meth dealers … got off scot-free. … Assess a fine; she'll pay the money, but every day she's away from her family" is punishment.

If not a fine, then Walsh asked for "a few months in the county jail, time served. It's up to you."