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Last updated on Thursday, April 19, 2012
(JASONVILLE) - A 35-year-old Jasonville area mother, already on probation for conviction of not sending her children to school in compliance with Indiana attendance laws, faces a revocation of her previous suspended sentence because she has again been charged with the same crime.
Nick Schneider, of the Greene County Daily World, reports that Linda Begley, of Lewis and formerly of Jasonville, was arrested last Wednesday by Jasonville City Police Officer Brian Pilant - who also serves as truant officer for the MSD of Shakamak School Corporation - on a preliminary charge of Failure to Comply with Compulsory School Attendance Law.
On the same day, Greene County Probation Officer Patrick Hillenburg filed a petition in Greene Circuit Court to revoke Begley's previously suspended sentence based on her latest arrest.
Begley was sentenced Sept. 7, 2011 in Greene Circuit Court of two counts of Failure to Comply With Compulsory Attendance - each class B misdemeanors.
She was sentenced to 180 days in the Greene County Jail with all but six days of the sentence suspended. She was placed on probation for one year and ordered to comply with terms of the court, which included insuring that her two children attend school as required by law and have no unexcused absences as well as not committing another criminal offense.
According to the petition filed by Hillenburg, one of the children, who is a high school student, had accumulated 13 unexcused absences during the current school year -- between August 2011 and March 2012.
An evidentiary hearing on the petition is set for 9:15 a.m. on May 9.
She was ordered held without bond.
Those absences are the basis for the new criminal charge filed by Pilant on April 9 in Greene Superior Court.
According to the probable cause filed by Pilant, Begley's child has unexcused absences on 12 full days and two half days this school year. The student had three absences without a "doctor's slip" and was advised in February that they would need to have a doctor's slip for any school absences.
"Linda will call in to say she is taking her (child) to the doctor but never does and sends in a written notes from her knowing that it has to be a doctor's slip," Pilant wrote in the affidavit.
Begley had posted a $4,000 appearance bond in this case, but that was revoked by the other pending charge.
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