Life Behind the Curve

I wanted to make sure to thank those of you who commented on my post about restitution and to tell you the outcome of the hearing.

Two weeks ago, I spoke with the deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County. I wanted to know if we should consider flying down for the restitution hearing scheduled for last Thursday. He asked what my requested restitution was. “Ten thousand, five hundred, fourteen dollars and ninety two cents,” I said. *Silence* He was a bit stunned. (Apparently that’s a lot of money.) In fact, he first said he thought that it’d be a good idea, but after a while he convinced himself, and me, that it was unnecessary. Just send everything down and we’ll show it to the judge, he said. He also mentioned he’d be appreciative if I wouldn’t mind including a copy for the defense attorney so he wouldn’t have to. Budget cuts and all.

So I did what I do: I created a spreadsheet (if you know me IRL, this will come as absolutely no surprise to you). I numbered each line. In the columns I entered the store I’d have to buy a replacement item from, a description of the item, the price. I included the body work, the rental car, the replacement home and car keys, the iPod, the blackberry, the carseat, the basketball, and one day of pay for each of us. (We took the Monday after the theft off to deal with it, though in all honesty that 8 hours dramatically underrepresents the amount of time this cost us.) At the bottom I totalled it. $10,514.92.

I photocopied every receipt and next to it wrote in the number which corresponded to the line item in the spreadsheet.

I typed up a letter explaining my methodology. At the end of the letter I told the Deputy DA about my blog post. I told him I included a copy and that I understood that the purpose of restitution is to recover actual damages, not emotional distress. I told him to do with it what he may.

I copied the entire pack of papers, put two copies in an envelope and FedEx’d them down south.

Thursday afternoon, Scoot got a call. The judge ordered full restitution. From now on, we have the legal right to sue him for that money. (Let’s be honest, though, the vast majority of it belongs to Allstate.) The Deputy DA commented to Scoot that he’d never seen such a detailed, organized packet put together like that. Heh.

He also said that the defense attorney has my letter to the defendant. I have no idea what he’s going to do with it. He could keep it in his file, throw it away, or give it to the guy who turned our world upside down for a couple of months. I’m not sure I care one way or the other but it’s a bit strange not knowing what’s going to happen with it.

Either way, as I said on Twitter, score a moral victory for justice. This was never about money. It was about him taking responsibility for his actions. He’s now got a prison sentence, a letter about D, and a big financial debt to take on. I hope just one of those things, just one, provides him with the motivation he needs to stay out of trouble when he gets out in late 2010 or early 2011 (assuming he’s on good behavior). With all of my being, I really hope he’s learned his lesson. He’s only 19 years old.

On a side note, I’d like to thank the Monterey Park Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for dealing with our case as quickly as they did. Sure they had a lot of help from a guy who was caught red-handed with priors for the same offense, and it was in their best interest to move the case to conclusion as quickly as possible. Nonetheless I really appreciate their commitment to communicating with us about the case and getting it handled so fast.