Amanda Linscott Got Reduced Charges

Amanda Linscott, showing injury form the incident

Amanda Linscott, the young woman in Charlotte County who gained media notoriety for allegedly pulling a gun during sex in a moving vehicle, resolved her case this week. The state had initially picked up armed robbery charges. She contested, claiming that she was the victim of a beating, and had injuries to support her claim. She potentially could have asserted a stand your ground defense. The issues in the case were enough to convince the parties to negotiate, and she plead no contest to the greatly reduced charge of Aggravated Assault. She was sentenced to 3 years of probation, with assorted fines, fees etc., and the court withheld adjudication. That means she will not be a convicted felon for this offense if she successfully completes her probation. The state made an offer attractive enough to convince her to plea instead of the risk of a 10-20-Life prison sentence if she was unsuccessful at trial.

Highway Robbery update: charges filed against Amanda Linscott

Amanda Linscott

Prosecutors have filed formal charges in the Highway Robbery case.  Ms. Linscott, if you’ll recall, was arrested for armed robbery for allegedly pulling a gun to rob Glenn Aspen while riding in a car performing sex acts on him.  I anticipated the charges would be amended if filed, and the state has filed Attempted Armed Robbery charges.  This means the state feels they have evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Linscott tried, but failed, to commit a robbery with a firearm…. that is, she didn’t get anything.  The facts of the case are extremely suspect, as I have pointed out before on this blog.   I am a little disappointed that the state picked up charges, after reading the full booking report, in which Ms. Linscott explained how Mr. Aspen had been the attacker.

Due to the use of the firearm, the state will likely be seeking 10 years in prison due to the 10/20/Life statute.  Because of that high minimum mandatory sentence, the case has a high likelihood of going to trial, it’s all or nothing, unless the state agrees to amend the charges significantly down.  That all-or-nothing result means that one side will certainly be unhappy after the nearly-inevitable trial.  Trials are more expensive, and mandatory minimum sentences reduce the State’s willingness and ability to negotiate reasonable results.  The intent of the harsh statue to deter fun violence is a noble cause, but could end up punishing what should be lawful self-defense based on the word of one whoring drunk-driver (Mr. Aspen, who has not been charged at this date). 

Ms. Linscott was a lawful gun owner, with a permit.  It is her word against Mr. Aspen, who admittedly was paying prostitutes and drinking and driving the night of the incident.  It seems far-fetched, but if the jury believes him, she will be sentenced to no less than 10 years in state prison.  They may not believe him, due to his criminal activity, and the fact that she was the only one who suffered any injuries that night, but it just goes to show you how one accuser can ruin your life. #highwayrobbery

The Defense has filed a motion to have Ms. Linscott found indigent.  That simply means that due to her lack of financial means, the state will be required to pay the costs of defending her case.

Highway Robbery, more on the Amanda Linscott case: EXCLUSIVE

I speculated before that the Sex/Driving/Robbery/Gun/Crash case involving Amanda Linscott had a lot more than meets the eye when I first saw the story.  I spoke to Ms. Linscott’s attorney at Brown, Suarez & Rios and confirmed that there was a lot more going on that the media had reported.  Crimcourts has now obtained a copy of the actual police report, the Probable Cause Affidavit [PCA], and holy cow the other side of the story is monumental.

According to Detective Korte-Sweede, after Ms. Linscott fled from her accuser, her father flagged down law enforcement to give her side of the story.  What you haven’t heard in the media is that Ms. Linscott told deputies that Glenn Aspen instigated the incident by trying to force her to engage in sex acts.  That’s a pretty important detail.  Additionally, the gun was legally possessed, it belongs to Ms. Linscott’s father and she had a permit to carry it.  Also, the Detective found Mr. Aspen to be impaired when she initially responded to the scene. 

Coupling these new allegations, with the fact that Ms. Linscott bore injuries from being punched (and from the car crash), we must have serious concerns about the validity of these charges.  In fact, if Ms. Linscott’s story is to be believed, she was the victim of an attempted sexual assault that day.  Certainly Mr. Aspen committed the offenses of DUI with Property Damage and Leaving the Scene of an Accident and Prostitution.  It is difficult to discern what happened inside the car, but we do know that only Ms. Linscott got beat up.

After reading the PCA, I got upset with the media for not including the other half of the story… until I checked the press release from the Sheriff’s Office. Guess what, the Sheriff’s release only told the accuser’s version of the story.  The completely left out that Ms. Linscott claimed to be the victim.  Sadly, the media just ran with the story, instead of doing a minimal amount of research to report both sides of the story.  Crimcourts will keep digging, to provide you with the whole truth.

Amanda Linscott exclusive update on Crimcourts

Amanda Linscott was arrested Tuesday on an allegation that she pulled a gun to rob a guy while having sex with him in a car.  He claims he punched her in the face, wrecked the car, and she ran off.  Ms. Linscott has retained Brown, Suarez & Rios, one of the premium criminal defense firms in Southwest Florida to represent her on the case.  As Crimcourts has a special relationship with the firm (I used to work there,) I am able to provide some exclusive insights from speaking to partner Christopher Brown, one of the attorneys working on the case.

While Mr. Brown can’t give me all the details on the case, suffice it to say I’m adding a #standyourground hashtag to my posts on Ms. Linscott.  I said yesterday that the story didn’t make sense, and I had a strong inclination that there was quite a bit that I was reading between the lines.  One key piece of information that bears heavily on figuring out what’s going on is that the alleged victim ran away from the scene after wrecking his car.  He claims that he was scared of her, but she had already run away from him!

Now, this information begs the question: “Why would somebody run away from their car accident?”  Leaving the scene of an accident is a crime in its own right.  We know that the victim had been hanging out at a bar (picking up hookers).  Indications are he had been drinking before he drove and wrecked his car, which would explain his flight from the accident.

Exhibit A

Also, we know he punched Ms. Linscott in the face (see Exhibit A.)  Now this drinking-driving, hooker-buying, girl-punching guy wrecks his car, knows he’s facing charges for Driving Under the Influence (with Damage) and Leaving the Scene of an Accident, and Battery has to come up with a story to tell the cops so he won’t go to jail.  We know what story he came up with.  Does it add up?  Consider this: why would she try to rob a guy that didn’t have enough money to pay her friend for services rendered?  That doesn’t make sense, and the “victim’s” story doesn’t make sense.  Now that I know more, I urge anyone reading this to hold off on making judgments in the case until both sides of the story are heard.

I hope the State Attorney’s office scrutinizes this case very carefully before filing charges: the whole case is based on a victim whose testimony is very, very questionable.  I know that Chris Brown, Scott Weinberg and the BSR team will vigorously defend her.  I will continue to follow the case right here on Crimcourts: tell your friends! #highwayrobbery

Additional details in Amanda Linscott robbery

According to the Clerk of Courts for Charlotte County, Ms. Linscott has been charged with one count of armed robbery, and has an arraignment Nov. 19.  This will certainly be amended, if the state decides to go forward with charges, they will add the gun language, so the charge will be “Armed Robbery with a Firearm.”  That distinction is important, because if the state files charges with that language, the 10/20/Life Statute will come into play.  The gun was not fired, so if convicted she would face a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence (no early release), and could be facing up to life in prison.  Check out the previous post.

Woman pulls gun on man during sex in a moving car

Amanda Linscott

She warned him it was her turn!

Port Charlotte, FL: Amanda Linscott allegedly pulled a gun on a man while having sex with him in a moving vehicle Tuesday morning.  This soap opera case has money for sex and robbery and all sorts of fun stuff that I’m not even going to try to summarize.  You must check out the article on NBC-2.com, it’s one in a million.  I’ll try to give the story a little color, though. 

First off, reading between the lines, there is more to the story than meets the eye.  We haven’t heard any of Ms. Linscott’s story, and on its face: it doesn’t add up.  It’s dramatic, for sure, but sketchy at best.  For instance, how did the man identify that the gun was a .357 Taurus revolver if it’s being pointed at him while he’s driving and having sex.  I’ll concede it’s possible, but there are very few people who would have not only the requisite knowledge to identify that specific weapon, much less the wherewithal to do so when it’s being pointed at their head.  Perhaps he ID’d it later, we can’t tell from this story.  We do know, he’s the kind of guy who pays for sex for women he meets at bars.  We know she got a pretty good shiner from him punching her (which is certainly justified if she really had a gun to his head.)  There’s a lot of unanswered questions here, and I will try to follow this case in the future.

Lemmesee… there are more jokes to be had here… Highway Robbery?  That’s what I call a bad date? This gives a new meaning to sex crime. #sexcrime