Jack Schaap may be facing up to 10 years in prison

Jack Schaap of First Baptist Hammond Facing 10 Years in Prison for Teen Affair

“I have agreed, as set forth in a separate filing with the Court, to wave my right to Indictment by a federal Grand Jury with respect to the charge of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and to plead guilty to that charge,” reads Schaap’s plea agreement in court documents obtained by The Christian Post. The court document also states that the expected sentence for such a crime could be up to 120 months, or 10 years incarceration.

Discussion

Yes, Larry, you’re correct on that point - my mistake. It does appear as though Schaap will avoid state charges on this matter.

I simply wanted to point that out since it is very possible for someone to be imprisoned for Federal charges and then be remanded to a state prison at the end of their federal sentence for other charges.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

Yes I have seen that happen the other way, that on the conclusion of a state sentence, the feds arrested the person and they were convicted on a federal charge. If the plea had been handled differently, they could have been rolled into one.

[Jay]

[Rob Fall]

[Alex Guggenheim] It does seem that there is a bit of naivety regarding how the various States Attorney’s offices work. They have a heavy workload and often they are more than happy to have the federal government do the heavy lifting if there are concurrent interests. They are not going to tell Jack Schaap this nor are they going to tell the public this but it is highly likely that they handed everything over to the federal government to deal with a case to save money. It cost a lot of money to bring a case to court and the states may not have evidence for violation of its statutes like the federal government does. They may not have had any intention of pressing charges but they are not going to inform Jack that or the public. Such a threat is often used as leverage though in reality it may not exist at all.

this means he’s going to serve his time on the Federal dime not a state’s. Not a little savings of a state’s tax dollars.

Actually, it has little to do with saving money for the state. Schaap is guilty of a Federal crime, so he belongs to the Federal prison system. There’s nothing stopping a state from prosecuting him now or during his imprisonment for violations of state law; he could do state time for state charges after his Federal sentence is up. The states involved may opt not to prosecute (and that sounds like it’s happened), but you can’t sentence a state felon to federal prison, IIRC.

I was going to let that go, but it’s been bothering me enough that I wanted to clarify.

Apparently you are unaware of the cooperation between states and the federal government when they have overlapping cases. As well, you are also unaware that SA’s operate on a budget. It has a great deal to do with money with regard to states which do not have the almost unlimited resources of the Federal government.

Yes, when the Feds take a case in which there may also be some state level interest, it does save money for the state because it costs money to bring a case to trial, or were you also unaware of this? SA’s are evaluated on their choices of cases to prosecute, their expenditures and their outcomes. Choosing weak cases and losing them costs the state and namely, the SA’s money they need to use as efficiently as possible and the SA does not like to lose, not only egotistically but as well, because of job security.

So when there are overlapping interests, it is of direct financial interest to the SA to accomplish several things in cooperating with Federal Prosecutors.

1. They appear to have used the threat of their office to force a man to plead guilty to something, though it is not in their court system.

2. The guilty plea and its sentence usually contains what punishment is either equal to or greater than what they would receive in the state (and often multiple charges get concurrent sentences, even in Fed/State cases)

3. They remove the cost to their office and money used elsewhere for more certain cases and do not run the risk of using state money for a losing case.

The list could be added to but it makes its point. It is about cost in many cases and in this case, seeing the cases were probably weak, it is very likely the SA used their offices in a way to appear to force some kind of guilty plea via cooperation with the Feds by way of threat of further prosecution, hence appearing to responsibly dispose of the cases.

My one line position got lost in Jay’s quote.

[Moi] And this means he’s going to serve his time on the Federal dime not a state’s. Not a little savings of a state’s tax dollars.
So, Alex and I are in agreement. He just used more words.

Hoping to shed more light than heat..

Yes, but our readers may not.

[Alex Guggenheim] Me use more words? What? Yes, I understood it as you agreeing with the principle that the state is or was saving money.

Hoping to shed more light than heat..

Alex,

You and I will have to just disagree.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

[Jay]

Alex,

You and I will have to just disagree.

I am sure my and Rob’s being right and your disagreeing with it and being wrong is not problem at all. In fact, when someone is wrong, I am more than happy to disagree with them so indeed, we will have to disagree. :)

Jay, in many cases an accused person is tried in both Sate and Federal courts. Neither Alex or I are saying there were no valid charges to be brought by the various district attorneys. However, in today’s climate of fiscal restraint, it made sense to the DAs to let the Feds deal with the matter.

[Jay]

Alex,

You and I will have to just disagree.

Hoping to shed more light than heat..