Airick accepts plea deal
Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 1:37 pm
Airick opted to accept a plea deal of two years of Determinant Sentence Offender probation, in return for which the state will change his charge from “Aggravated Attempted Sexual Assault” to “Aggravated Assault.” In order to accept the deal, Airick was required to tell the court that he used a weapon to assault his victim, in order for the charge to qualify as aggravated assault—in essence confessing to a crime he had insisted for nearly two years that he did not commit, in order to secure his release and return home to his family. At the time of his original trial, the victim never testified that a weapon was used or displayed as part of the assault she alleged. Privately, Airick continues to maintain that he did not assault his victim, with or without a weapon.
By the terms of the deal, Airick was paroled through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, rather than the Texas Youth Commission, resulting in an adult felony record that will follow him into adult life. He is now living with his family out of state.
Since the Texas Supreme Court reversed and remanded Airick’s case in May, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has filed several delaying motions, and his original sentencing judge refused to write the bench warrant that would release him from the authority of the Texas Youth Commission. At issue was Airick’s inability to complete TYC’s Sexual Behavior Treatment Program. Because Airick never confessed to the crime for which he was adjudicated, he was never able to enter the program.
Airick and his family considered waiting for a retrial in which they would have attempted to prove that he did not commit either sexual assault or aggravated assault on his alleged victim. However, Airick accepted the deal when he got tired of waiting for release. “I’ve been locked up since I was fifteen. I feel like I missed my childhood,” he says. “I’d to at least try and get a little bit of that back.”
Filed under Airick
