PA- Wife gets jail term for attempted killing

10-21-2008 Pennsylvania:

BELLEFONTE — A judge sentenced a Muncy woman Monday to spend at least 111/ 2 years in prison for trying three times to kill her husband — the first time after they were married just 93 days.

Ronald Balliet called his wife Christine C. Balliet the “female version of Scott Peterson” in a letter he gave to the media through a victim advocate at the District Attorney’s Office.

Christine Balliet in turn called her husband a child molester, and said she resorted to violence because she believes her husband was sexually abusing her children.

“I am here before you because I dared protect my children from abuse from their stepfather,” she told Senior Judge Charles C. Brown Jr. Ron Balliet and his family fiercely countered those claims, saying Balliet was fabricating the accusations to save herself.

“I can’t believe she said that about my brother,” said Sheri Shoemaker. District Attorney Michael Madeira said, to his knowledge, no report of Balliet’s children being molested was ever made to police.

He called her allegations the desperate attempts of a woman about to be sentenced.

Christine Balliet had pleaded no contest — meaning she acknowledged the prosecution could prove her case, but did not admit any guilt — to attempting to murder Ron Balliet, first by stabbing him in the chest, then by trying to run him over with her car, and then by seeking out a hit man from her jail cell.

“I have nightmares,” Ron Balliet told the court. “And in most of them I am not as lucky.”

The 31/ 2-inch blade that police say Christine Balliet used to stab her husband in February 2007 while they drove along Boalsburg Road was stopped by bone.

The tires of her car missed him when she tried to run him over, and the hit man she tried to hire was an undercover police officer, police said.

“I beg of you, judge, don’t reward her for her failure,” Ron Balliet said.

Christine Balliet asked Brown to sentence her to time already served, which would have allowed her to walk free Monday, so she could be with her children.

“I must note that Mrs. Balliet’s daughters are going to suffer,” Brown said.

Brown said he read with “care and a heavy heart” the letters from Christine Balliet’s children, who don’t have a father in their lives.

But her allegations of abuse couldn’t affect his decision, Brown said.

“I can’t deal with them and sculpt any kind of sentence based on that,” he said.

Ron Balliet said the biggest impact has been on his children, adults who adore their father and are so traumatized that at one point he had to put chairs under all the door knobs in his home so they could sleep.

Prosecuting attorney Karen Kuebler asked for Balliet to be sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison because of her continued attempts, and because of her lack of remorse.

Kuebler said Balliet’s plea of no contest showed she did not accept any responsibility and there is “no belief that she won’t attempt to do this again.”

Brown said he too wasn’t sure that Ron Balliet “is not at risk,” and gave Balliet a right-down- the-middle sentence: 111/ 2 to 23 years in prison with credit

for 600 days of time already served. She will also have to pay more than $4,000 in restitution to her husband and is not to have any contact with him. ..News Source.. by Sara Ganim