SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE,JULY 23, 2008
Sentence suspended
Adoption records thief to get mental evaluation
Woman placed on probation pending exam results
A woman who stole hundreds of confidential adoption records from Farmington's 2nd District Court will undergo a mental health evaluation before a judge decides whether to send her to jail for up to a year.
Jill Ekstrom, 43, had pleaded no contest to five of 21 original counts of stealing public records, all class A misdemeanors. Prosecutors say Ekstrom stole the records to sell them to adopted children hoping to identify their biological parents.
Ekstrom - who called herself a "confidential intermediary" - was caught in a stin
g when a Davis County sheriff's deputy posed as an adopted child seeking a birth parent.
On Tuesday, 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield sentenced her to a year in jail, but suspended the term until the mental health evaluation is completed, Deputy Davis County Attorney Rick Westmoreland said after the hearing.
He said some statements Ekstrom made to pre-sentence investigators caused the judge concern. "He ordered the mental health evaluation to see if these things are real or imagined," Westmoreland said.
Because the theft occurred in the 2nd District Court, the case was prosecuted in Brigham City's 1st District Court. A review hearing was set for Sept. 29.
Meanwhile, the judge placed Ekstrom on probation for 18 months and fined her $540.
The judge also ordered her to pay $850 restitution to the Davis
County Sheriff's Office for the cost of the sting operation, and $30 to the 2nd District Court, to replace stolen microfilm records. - Stephen Hunt
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1 comment:
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