Christian Elliot Arss Chewing
Feb 26 2021
  Feb was not a good month for one local do gooder, Cristian Elliot (CE) . On Feb 1st she plead guilty to stealing from Lizemore Fire Dept (LFD) and then cooking the books to cover her tracks. Shortly there after,   she posted pics of the online court hearing and made contact with folks at the LFD, both a real no no in the Court's eye and after getting caught, that was the reason for this court appearance.  To get up to date, walk over to our Feb 6th coverage.
  Here's the setting. Friday morning, Feb 26th, after handling several juvy cases, Judge Ric Facemire was back on the bench and ready to deal with Christian Elliot's transgressions. In the peanut gallery were upwards of 25 people.
  Dressed neatly in a black sweater and jeans, Ms Elliot came into the courtroom with her attorney, Allan Pritt.
  Taking the reigns, Pritt laid out what his client was willing to agree to including: Elliot admits to the allegations in the contempt of court charges; she did read the red warning label about not taking pictures or facebook video; she knows she was violating the rules; she did reach out to LFD people ; and she knows she made a mistake.
   See what he's doing? Pritt was refreshing his clients memory so she didn't screw up when asked. Pritt was well prepared for the hearing, he had his ducks in a row and worked to keep his client in line.
   Getting everything on the record, Prosecutor Samples questioned Elliot to get details. Stuff came up like: How many photos? CE 2; How many videos? CE None; Did you know the court rules? CE Yes; You also took pictures of other defendants that morning? CE Yes;
  You know you violated your bond? CE Yes; Were the photos retrieved? CE No;
  Note: if you are before a peed off Judge , you want to come across as sincere and willing to agree with the Robe.... apply as much suction as possible.  When asked about the cellphone pictures taken and has she removed the images, Elliot, well, sounded less than remorseful. Instead, she said that the Probation office had her cellphone so how was she suppose to remove the pics?
  Now back to Jim Samples' question session.... did you know your bond conditions require you to have no contact with LFD workers, again CE was a little terse with something along the lines of, how can I not have contact with LFD, I am married to the fire chief and my father in law is on the Board of Directors.
  Trying to recover a little catching herself, somewhere in there CE " I was not aware...I understand now..."
  Judge Facemire provided Ms Elliot time to speak. Her comments included: I accept responsibility..... I never meant to offend this Court.... I meant this to be for private use...It was not my intention to pee off this court...
  Firming up the Prosecutor's side, Samples: She violated the rules...she affected two other defendants; this is an extraordinary  problem for bond... This is [certainly] contempt of court.
  Word on the street has it, Ric Facemire heard about CE recording that Feb 1st hearing and was mad as H. If this hearing had been held back then, our guess, Elliot would have been chained to a tree outside the Courthouse. With three weeks to cool down, it was time for the Judge to express remarks. Readers, we try to write down the important parts and this is one of em. Unfortunately, the speakers speak quicker than the Ace Cub Reporter's pen can scribe. So... instead of getting all the juicy words, we managed to write down about every other passage. With that in mind, here goes.
  Facemire was on the edge of his red chair. When speaking, he gave CE the evil eye. His comments included:
  It is clear you knew there was to be no recording
  The disclaimer was on the [web] site
  It is a violation to record the proceeding
  You need court permission to record.
  You used extremely poor judgement
   It troubles me that you did not take this serious
  You made a mockery [of this court]
  You are charged with serious offenses
   This [action] reflects on your future
   Can I risk you out [of jail]?
   I don't know why you did it
   You violated the law......
   Ms Elliot did not flinch, move, turn her head, smile,.. nothing. You knew she was in deep doo doo.
  Judge Facemire continued with:
   You are in contempt of Court
   You violated the terms of your bond too
   I am not imposing jail... I could revoke your bond, but won't
    There was complete silence in Court land. Even those over in the far corner were dead still.
  Judge Ric Facemire imposed a $1000 fine that had to be paid by Monday, March 1st. IF that is paid these new contempt charges will be purged from her record.
   Also, CE was ordered to destroy those pics, all of em.
  Facemire admitted that he was granting her leniency. He told her, at one point, CRJ had a 78% positive rate for the Corony bug. That, such jail time could be a death sentence. "You could die there!"
 The Robe reminded CE to pay the fine on Monday or she would go to the slammer.
   How about that for a morning in Court. Christian Elliot had gotten a strong dressin down and slap on the wrist. She got lucky.
   As for her sentence for stealing from LFD and then covering up her actions, that come at the end of this month.
   Stealing from a non profit... stupid and darn right rotten.  Posting pics from the court hearing, even doubly dumb.
   AW