Let’s see if we can figure out who’s the craziest in this Karen Sypher saga.
The prosecutor in the extortion case, U.S. Attorney John Kuhn, wants the defendant to undergo psychological testing. The government has some secret reason for requesting the testing, which are included in a sealed pleading.
The U.S. Attorney’s logic for asking for the competency hearing, from today’s news, seems to be that her previous attorney, Thomas Clay, thought she was crazy, or at least expressed concerns over her mental status. Let’s guess that Clay couldn’t understand why his client kept doing interviews with the media.
If the court were to agree with the U.S. Attorney, Sypher could potentially be declared to have a mental condition that would render her unable to stand trial. I’m told that if that were to occur, the charges could be dismissed and there would be no trial.
So why would the prosecution be seeking such a judgment from the court? We tried to figure this out last month.
I don’t have an answer. Rick Pitino, while blasing the media last month, said he “needs” the case to go to trial, so all the lies he claims Sypher’s been spouting will be exposed. And Sypher says she wants the case to go to trial, because she believes that she’ll be vindicated when the truth come out in the courtroom.
Both sides seem to want to go to trail. But no date is set.
4 responses so far ↓
1 MetroHack // Sep 23, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I was so over this story when Ricky P said yes I “made a mistake”. Who cares, really…….
2 syvyn11 // Sep 23, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Sypher is crazy for thinking she’s going to get off. And crazy for even coming up with such a scheme.
Pitino is crazy for thinking that we wouldn’t care about this.
And we are crazy for paying so much attention to this cockamamie story!
3 keatssycamore // Sep 24, 2009 at 8:30 am
I think it’s clear that Pitino and the prosecutors in his pocket don’t want a trial. The prosecution NEVER asks for a competency hearing and they ALWAYS claim every defendant is competent to stand trial.
And there’s no way that Sypher is incompetent to stand trial. You’ve got to be REALLY out of it to be incompetent. Tough on crime judges and prosecutors have made certain of that in past cases.
I don’t understand why the C-J won’t ask a few former prosecutors just how common it is for THE PROSECUTION to request a competency hearing. Is it that hard to smell something fishy going on here and to gently point that out in the newspaper?
4 novena // Sep 24, 2009 at 4:10 pm
“Sypher Is No Mental Cypher”
Keatssycamore is correct. It is very difficult to prove incompetence to stand trial. Though I don’t know the lady, I doubt whether she could compete with Charlie Manson, Jeffrey Daumer, or Ted Bundy, who were all declared competent enough to stand trial. Good luck, Karen and Rick–it should be a grand show for the Ville.
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