Options: Be tried or be sentencedThe Villa Hills woman who thought she had a deal to resolve charges that she had sex with schoolmate of her son's at Covington Catholic High will now have to decide whether to go to trial or let a judge decide her fate.
That's the choice left Jeni Lee Dinkel after Kenton Circuit Judge Greg Bartlett refused Monday to approve her plea agreement, which would have spared her prison time.
Bartlett said he had too many questions about the agreement to ratify it.
He gave Dinkel - a Hollywood makeup artist and wife of former Bengal Tom Dinkel - two weeks to decide whether she wanted to withdraw the guilty plea and go to trial, or allow Bartlett to impose his own sentence on her.
...If her guilty plea stands, Dinkel could be sentenced to one to five years in prison.
"We're obviously disappointed in the judge's decision not to approve the plea deal," Travis said. "We're going to sit down and evaluate what we will do next."
Sanders said the next move is entirely Dinkel's call.
...Bartlett told the two sides at Monday's hearing that the court had not been included enough as the plea deal was being developed.
He complained that a sex offender assessment of Dinkel was done privately at her own expense and not by experts first approved by the court.
Bartlett also said differing accounts of who actually initiated the sexual contact - Dinkel or the boy - left too many unanswered questions to warrant approving the deal.
This from the Cincinnati Post. Photo by PATRICK REDDY/THE ENQUIRER: With her case unresolved, Jeni Lee Dinkel leaves court with her lawyer, Burr Travis.
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