Port St. Lucie woman guilty of extortion of convicted sex offender

6-25-2010 Florida:

FORT PIERCE — A jury took just 19 minutes Wednesday afternoon to find a 47-year-old Port St. Lucie woman guilty of trying to extort $33,000 and a 2003 Cadillac DeVille from a convicted sex offender.

Carol Merrilee Wands faces up to 15 years in prison when she is sentenced July 28 for the second-degree felony conviction.

In the one-day trial John Deshler, 41, who pleaded no contest in 2005 to a charge of lewd or lascivious battery for inappropriately touching a girl in her mid-teens and was sentenced to 15 years of sex offender probation, testified he had a lunch date with Wands, a co-worker, in June 2009 and that and afterward the two kissed and fondled each other at her house in the 400 block of Southeast Sandia Drive.

Deshler admitted he was “turned on,” but testified that when Wands said, “I don’t know if we should do this,” he backed off.

About a week later, he said, he received a letter from Wands through their boss demanding 33 payments of $1,000 in cash and provide the title to his Cadillac or she would report to his probation officer that Deshler force himself on her.

Deshler said he took the threat seriously because “all it takes is an allegation, and I’m done; I’m back in prison. … I’m assumed to be guilty and have to prove I’m innocent before I get out.”

On advice from an attorney, Deshler contacted the State Attorney’s Office and worked with investigators to record phone conversations with Wands and videotape, with a camera hidden in Deshler’s watch, an initial transaction July 27 of $1,000 and the car’s title.

Jurors saw the tape, which ends with police surrounding the car and arresting Wands, on Wednesday.

“That the jury came back with that verdict in that short a time suggest to me that they were convinced of their decision,” said Assistant State Attorney John Cannizzaro. “I think it also shows that anyone can be a victim of a crime, even a convicted sex offender.”

Both Wands and Deshler now have been convicted of second-degree felonies. Deshler took a plea deal and received a probationary sentence; Cannizzaro said he’ll ask Circuit Judge Lawrence Mirman to incarcerate Wands. ..Source.. TCPalm.com