Charges against woman over ‘illegal taping’ dropped

[keith in RI]

Charges against woman over 'illegal taping' dropped

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, December 6, 2008

By Randal Edgar

Journal Staff Writer

Marilyn Sheldon, in Superior Court, was arrested by Hopkinton police last year on charges that she illegally taped conversations.

The Providence Journal Bill Murphy

Marilyn Sheldon was armed for battle on April 19, 2007. That was the day the Hopkinton building inspector came to the door, bringing a contingent that included Sheldon's landlord, the landlord's son and a police officer.

The inspector wanted to see if repairs had been made to Sheldon's Hope Valley home, and the one-time public access TV show host responded in quintessential fashion, by having her daughter videotape their every move.

Only when the men went down to the basement did Sheldon and her daughter, then 19, stop following. But as the police and the attorney general's office later discovered, the men were still on camera.

About five minutes after they went into the basement, one of the men apparently pulled a cable from a camera in the rafters, causing the feed to an upstairs TV to go blank. Sheldon, incensed, later brought the videotape to the Hopkinton police, asking that charges be brought for destruction of property.

The police reviewed the tape, but rather than pursue a destruction of property charge they arrested Sheldon, alleging she illegally taped a conversation among three of the men while they were in the basement.

Sheldon insisted at the time she was innocent, saying the camera was "in plain view." But the police had brought the tape to the attorney general's office, which concluded there was probable cause to charge her with unauthorized interception of oral communication — a felony that carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

Armed with a search warrant, the police seized more than 300 videotapes, a computer, a videocassette recorder, a TV and 32 Instamatic cameras from the house Sheldon rented at 14 Aldrich St.

Last month, however, the case took a U-turn. After a detailed review, the attorney general's office concluded there was "insufficient evidence" to prove Sheldon was guilty.

Among other things, the men in the basement "knew they were being watched and listened to," which meant they had "no reasonable expectation of privacy," attorney general spokesman Michael J. Healey said this week. At one point, Healey said, the landlord and the building inspector whisper to avoid being heard, and one of them also says they should talk outside because Sheldon tapes everything.

Sheldon, back in court yesterday to get her property back, had sharp words for people who put her through the 18-month ordeal.

"It was a false arrest," she said during a break in yesterday's proceeding in Superior Court in Providence. "Everybody knew they were being recorded on audio and video."

Sheldon, 60, is known to some people in Hopkinton and other area towns for her Justice TV show, which once ran on local cable and often alleged wrongdoing on the part of local officials and the police, not to mention a former landlord.

A native of Boston, she lived in Florida and Connecticut before moving to Hopkinton in 2005. She moved to the single-family house in Hopkinton's Hope Valley village at the invitation of the owner, Richard Manfredi, who said she could stay there for $500 a month.

Sheldon has said the trouble started when Manfredi refused to make repairs. In response, she made some repairs herself and stopped paying rent, but Manfredi's lawyer has said his client often could not get into the house to make repairs, even when he called ahead.

The Town of Hopkinton eventually pressed charges against Manfredi, who made repairs and was back in April 2007 for what was supposed to be a walkthrough with the building inspector to show that the work was done.

The eavesdropping case against Sheldon normally would have been handled in Washington County, but it was moved to Providence after she said she was concerned about getting a fair hearing. Among other things, she said yesterday, court clerks in Washington County were amused by an unflattering video of her that had been posted on YouTube. The video later led to a misdemeanor cyberstalking charge against a Richmond resident, who entered an Alford plea — not admitting guilt but conceding there was sufficient evidence to find him guilty.

Just how much evidence there was in the felony case against Sheldon, now living in Narragansett, was a subject of debate yesterday.

Sheldon said the attorney general's office should have known up front that the case was a "no-go," and her court-appointed lawyer, Mark L. Smith, acknowledged that had the prosecution checked the evidence "a little more closely" in the beginning, they might have decided not to charge her.

But Healey said the attorney general's office did not see details in the video — the whispering and the comments about Sheldon taping everything — until they looked more closely this fall. Based on actions and comments in the video, he said on Thursday that the men had "no reasonable" expectation of privacy. He softened that stance yesterday, saying it could be argued that they had "no expectation of privacy."

Hopkinton Police Chief John S. Scuncio said yesterday that he was unaware of the elements Healey cited in the videotape and stressed that the police charged Sheldon only after they brought the tape and other evidence to the attorney general.

"If the attorney general intended not to do it, then they should have told us from the beginning. It would have saved us a lot of time and effort," he said.

Healey, however, said Hopkinton "was very persistent about our charging this case."

He said the "probable cause" threshold that is used to decide whether to charge a case is much lower than the threshold for proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what prosecutors consider as they prepare to go to trial.

He said the attorney general's office moves cases as quickly as it can, given the case load. In 2007, there were 6,700 felony cases, he said.

redgar@projo.com

[neggy]

No public official or employee in the course of their official duties should have an expectation of privacy, except when discussing pending lawsuits and contract negotiations/HR issues, which are normally done in executive session, and the minutes of the meetings are made public when the need for privacy is over.

When I did public access TV one of my fellow producers videotaped a cop walking down the street ticketing cars. He set it to music (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly) and used it in his show. The cop threatened to sue but decided against it when he found out his chances of winning were about zero.