14/15 y.o. now 24,
When I was Fourteen years old (mid-late 2010) I was charged with 2 counts of possession of a schedule II controlled substance, 1 count of intent to distribute a controlled substance (which was complete BS) 1 found of Felony Theft of a Controlled Substance,
and 1 count of 3rd Degree Burglary.
What happened was that I stole painkillers from my mother. At the time, I had been abusing prescription painkillers and experimenting with heroin, and I had stolen 8 percocets from a lock-box that my mom kept her pills in... I broke the box to get into it, and while I was being searched and questioned by police my mother got the bright idea to tell them that I was a “drug-dealer”, and give them one pill of Adderall that I got from a kid at school that she found in my backpack, multiple types of pills = seller of drugs in their eyes, so that’s where they got the “intent to distribute” from... my court process was long and arduous, and I got the general idea that the judge and DA didn’t much care for me. BUT Kim Verhoeff was my Public Defender, and she worked very hard to get charges dropped and my overall sentence reduced from what could have been a very bad situation, to what basically amounted to 5 months of house arrest, drug-classes, and 1 year of probation... I ultimately ended up screwing up my probation like right after I got sentenced (because I was a degenerate) and after that went to Juvenile Hall for about 2 weeks, and then juvenile rehab (YRC Youth Recovery Center in Colorado, nice place) for 42 days.. after that, I was released and proceeded to do really well on my probation, to the point where I was discharged 8 months into a 1 year sentence for good behavior and excelling in school and getting a job and behaving... and I can’t help but think how different my life would probably be, if I didn’t have a public defender who actually cared about me and went hard for me.. she got all those charges dropped or deferred to where all I ended up being adjudicated for was ONE count of possession of a schedule II Controlled substance, no intent to to distribute.. I believe she also got my burglary dropped to a misdemeanor, and got the additional felony theft dropped.. compared to what my outcome could have been, I truly believe that she made it a lot better (I was a dumb naive kid and basically admitted to everything to the police, because I naively thought honestly would help my situation) than it could have potentially been, especially because a lot of kids from my town ended up going away for long periods of time for similar charges/situations, and they came back all ‘messed-up’. I feel like I was given a second chance because I had an attorney who treated me like a human being instead of a lost-cause, she went to bat for me almost 10 years ago and now I’m 24 and I haven’t been in any other major trouble since then, my juvenile record has since been expunged and now my life is pretty nice compared to a lot of my peers who had bad lawyers and ended up getting serious amounts of time..
Thank you, Kim Verhoeff.
