Published: Wednesday, June 7, 1995
Section: BRWD N
Page: 1BR
Rejecting a plea offer as undignified, foster mother Kathryn Reiter vowed Tuesday to go to trial in July to fight a felony charge for fleeing with her foster child, Baby J.
The plea agreement presented by Broward Prosecutor Dennis Siegel would have required Reiter to compose a 1,000-word essay about the rule of law and write letters to The Herald and other newspapers apologizing for disobeying the law, her attorney, Miguel de la O, said Tuesday.
"They want me to grovel," Reiter said Tuesday. "That's humiliation. I don't think I've done anything that deserves humiliation."
If Reiter accepted the agreement, she would have to reimburse the state for investigation expenses, spend two years on probation, plead guilty and do 200 hours of community service, de la O said.
Siegel said he doesn't expect any more negotiations.
"We're real far apart right now," he said.
Reiter disappeared with Baby J and her adopted son Thomas, 7, on March 7, after a judge awarded custody of the baby to the baby's second cousins. Baby J, born to a cocaine-addicted mother, had lived with the Reiters for two of her 2 3/4 years.
Reiter said she ran because she felt stymied by the courts and deceived by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. She and her husband Sidney, 74, say HRS promised them they could adopt Baby J.
When she surrendered to the police April 2, Reiter was charged with concealing a child against court order. She was placed under house arrest.
Baby J now lives in Hollywood with the cousins, who want to adopt her.
On Tuesday, Judge Charles Greene admonished Reiter for failing to notify her house-arrest supervisor when she left her house for 37 minutes May 22 -- her 38th birthday -- to fetch a prescription.
"The issue before you and before the court is your respect for the power of the court," the judge said.
An electronic ankle bracelet monitors her whereabouts. The conditions of her house arrest prohibit her from leaving her Hollywood home for anything other than doctor's appointments, work, grocery shopping, legal matters and driving her son to school. The judge also has allowed Reiter to travel to Chicago and Tallahassee to lobby for changes in child-welfare laws.
"I'm trying to follow the rules. I don't consider I've been disrespectful," Reiter said.
Her attorney will ask the judge next week to release her from house arrest.
"Now she wants to stay and fight," de la O said. "It would be counterproductive for her to run now."