"A judge agreed that she will serve about six years of probation, have to pay $2,700 in restitution and have to testify truthfully against her co-defendants."
Cool man. You finally made a comment that made me conjure an image that was so gross that I had to cleanse my palate by reading something more wholesome. I chose your username.
Part of her deal was a written statement describing what she will testify to. They don't give this kind of deal unless the subject has already provided sufficient useful information and sworn to its truthfulness. She's bound to her statement now and, if she retracts later, I'm sure they can both pull back the plea deal and charge her with perjury.
These prosecutors aren't stupid nor is this their first plea deal. They've already got the goods.
Oh they will absolutely bring the hammer down if she doesn't do and say everything by the book from this point forward, that's the point of a plea deal. It gets the defendant out of (most of the) trouble, but it locks them in to testifying fully and truthfully about the case from then on. If the prosecutor/judge thinks they aren't holding up that promise, the deal is taken away. You really do have to go full state's evidence if you take a deal like this, and they are not playing around with the threat of piling all those felony charges - and more - right back on you if you don't sing just the way the DOJ wants you to.
As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.
As much as I want to see the house of cards collapse, that toadies like her get off nearly Scott free is a real miscarriage of justice IMO. She should be serving actual time, and not in a white-collar-resort prison.
The problem is that the actions the state can prove only amount to misdemeanors. That's why RICO is so powerful. Even if you only did misdemeanors, if you were part of the conspiracy then you get lumped in with all the felonies everyone else committed too. The whole point of RICO is to roll up the underlings with the bosses and try to peel off underlings in exchange for cooperation.
By pleaing out, Powell is separating herself from the others and so those felony RICO charges don't apply anymore. All that said, this is all at the discretion of the DA and the judge. If Powell fucks up the terms of her deal she's in for six years of Georgia state prison. At 68 years old, that'd got to be a pretty good motivator for good behavior and cooperation.
I totally get it, and in the grand scheme it makes perfect sense. You let the little fish get off easy in order to secure a conviction on the big fish.
With that being said, I share the feeling of what u/enkers said above. It's disappointing that a lawyer, who damn well should have known better, can engage in a plot to overthrow our democracy and then get off with a slap on the wrist. It doesn't exactly serve as a deterrent for future conspirators, knowing that there are no serious consequences for helping "the bigger fish" commit crimes.
She always seemed like one of the biggest instigators to me. She drove a lot of the worst rhetoric and made up a lot of pure bullshit. Like you said, as a lawyer she should have been even more aware than her co-defendants how illegal this shit was.
I hope there’s good strategy behind the decision to allow her to plea. If her testimony can directly implicate Trump or others it might be worthwhile. She also might be dumb enough to violate the terms of her plea, in which case you get her confession AND you get to throw the book at her.
This could have been a real punishment if they made her hand sign a letter to every Georgian over voting age. That's justice. Let her chatgpt the letter. Also make her sign every single one 5 days a week, 8 hours a day until she's done.