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Bail set, plea deal offered to John Mark Karr
| Tuesday, Sep 19 2006 2:15 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, Sep 19 2006 2:15 PM
One-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr was offered a plea deal Tuesday in Sonoma County Superior Court on child pornography charges that would free him on probation.
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Assistant District Attorney Joann Risse said prosecutors would waive three of the five child pornography possession charges against him if he pleaded guilty on two remaining charges.
Karr, 41, would get credit for time served and would be placed on probation for three years.
Defense lawyer Robert Amparan said he would discuss the deal with Karr, but said he still believes his client is innocent.
Amparan said the public had received a "false picture" of Karr, whom he described as a "Southern gentleman with a sense of humor."
Karr's bail was set at $200,000, after Judge Cerena Wong called him a flight risk. Karr spent several months in the Sonoma County jail in 2001 awaiting trial on the child porn charges and fled after being released.
Amparan said he did not know if his client could afford bail.
Karr, a schoolteacher, was arrested Aug. 16 after making phone calls and writing e-mails suggesting he killed Ramsey, a 6-year-old beauty queen, in her Boulder, Colo., home in December 1996. He was returned to the U.S. from Thailand only to have the Ramsey case collapse.
DNA tests failed to connect Karr to the crime, and investigators had no evidence he was even in Boulder at the time of the slaying.
Risse argued against releasing Karr.
"This defendant represents a potential threat to the children of this community," Risse said.