Pamela?s mother makes wild claims about ex-husband: Contends daughter was threatened by Chris Turner
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?He told her she?d be at the bottom of Center Hill Lake,? said Karen Rogers in a 10-page letter to Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley begging for leniency in her daughter?s probation violation hearing today.
Mrs. Rogers contends her daughter was told she would be like the case of Scott and Laci Peterson ? except her body would never be found. The mother maintains this was an example of the ?mental, verbal and emotional abuse? heaped on her daughter by Turner prior to their divorce last year which came amid the sex charges against Rogers.
Mrs. Rogers says Turner, who left his job as Pioneer boys basketball coach last year, had blamed the Rogers family for his ?dead-end? job in Warren County, where he felt the athletes had no talent on the hardwood. She feels he took his frustration out on her daughter.
Her letter is one of several, from both friends and relatives, to be entered as mitigating evidence in the defense of Pamela Rogers in court today.
Rogers, 28, is to appear before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley this afternoon to answer to charges of violation of probation. If found guilty, Rogers could be sent to prison for the remainder of her eight-year term on charges of sexual battery by an authority figure and statutory rape.
She has already served nearly a year in jail, including 198 days when she was first sentenced and about three months since she was violated in April for breaking the rules of her probation just a month after being released from serving her 198 days.
It was less than a month after her release she reportedly set up a Web site on MySpace.com that lawmen say she used to contact both the victim and the victim?s teen-age sister. After being arrested for the Web site and released on bond pending her violation hearing, Rogers was caught allegedly sending text messages and erotic videos to the victim by cellphone. She was also hit with more charges this week when she was indicted on charges of exploitation of a minor for supposedly sending pornographic images of herself to the young victim.
?If these allegations are true, then there?s obviously something going wrong with her mentally and emotionally,? said Rogers? attorney, Peter Strianse, following his client?s arraignment for her newest round of probation violation charges. ?If this is proven, it would show an incredible lack of judgment. It would call into question her competency.?
With questions of her mental status swirling, Rogers has been seeing a mental health professional at the expense of the defense, since no competency testing has been ordered by the court. The mental health professional has visited Warren County Jail on an undisclosed number of occasions to talk with Rogers.
While it is unknown if mental status will be raised as a mitigating defense during the hearing today, Strianse did note, in a request for continuance, that he would like more time for his client to continue her mental health consultations.
Strianse was unsuccessful in getting an extended continuance. However, he did get a two-day delay as the hearing was originally scheduled for Wednesday. The delay was granted because Strianse is involved in a federal case which would have conflicted with the Rogers hearing.
During today?s hearing it is expected prosecutors will ask Judge Stanley to make Rogers serve the remainder of her sentence in the state penitentiary.
However, Rogers mother and others are asking for treatment instead of more jail time.
?No one would have done that (sex with the teen) if they were of normal mind,? Karen Rogers wrote, saying jail time would only make matters worse. ?She is realizing that the boy she fell in love with was not appropriate behavior.?