Sorg pleads not guilty on charges of sexual assault
By Linda (Linjun) Fan
Kay Sorg, a veteran teacher of Albany Middle School charged with sexual assault on a former student, pleaded not guilty in court last week.
The plea was postponed for nearly a year because Sorg’s defense attorney had been challenging the sufficiency of prosecutors’ complaint on the case.
The court accepted the complaint last Thursday after prosecutors added more allegations into it, according to Greg Dolge, Deputy District Attorney of Alameda County.
It’s written in the complaint that prosecutors have evidence of “sexually explicit” letters from the defendant to the alleged victim, who claimed that she was sexually molested by Sorg about 16 years ago while she was attending Albany schools.
“The letters don’t exist any more, but we have the victim’s testimony on them, ” Dolge said.
Sorg’s defense attorney Elizabeth Grossman believes that the testimony of the letters can not be accepted as evidence, and asked the court to conduct an evidential hearing on it.
The hearing will be held on May 30. A preliminary trial of the case will be scheduled if the judge of the case decides to accept the testimony as evidence.
Click here to read several earlier stories on the case.
Thanks for the update Linda! It seems the prosecution is grasping at straws at this point.
Actually, it seems pretty obvious that the defense is grasping at straws. They’re doing everything they can to get it tossed out, and the court is ruling against them every time. Now the police, the DA’s office, and a judge agree that the case has enough merit to go on…
I’m sorry but testimony of letters that do not exist anymore is not evidence in any stretch of the imagination. Their alleged existence is no more viable that the actual allegation itself. That is the problem in the USA, people are subjected to per/prosecution by hearsay.
How can this possibly, by any possible definition, be considered as “grasping at straws” by the defense? The prosecution has, on five separate occasions, refused to share their evidence and not allowed discovery by the defense. The defense, then, has done everything it can to have “evidence” – 16-year-old testimony without any actual physical evidence whatsoever – tossed.
This is sound legal technique, and should be the first thing any good defense attorney does.
“Grasping at straws” far better describes an attempt to use testimony as to the one-time-existence of evidence as evidence itself.
Um… The defense has gone from claiming that the relationship was a figment of the victim’s imagination to acknowledging that there were letters written, and acknowledging that the letters were read and that the information is something the DA wants to use as evidence. If several people witnessed a car accident, you don’t have to produce the damaged cars to prove that it happened. Sorg is trying to get off based on a technicality! Her claims of innocence get weaker and weaker with time. And by the way, the defense knows exactly what the evidence is. Discovery is not the issue at all. The prosecution has spared the public access to all the evidence, which is appropriate. Her lawyer and the judge have seen it all, and apparently there is enough to go on. It’s the defense attorney’s job to toss up road-blocks at every opportunity, even if they have no substance.
why do you people hold defense attorneys, who make their money off rapists and pedophiles, in higher regard than a team of district attorneys? last time i checked, it took brains and a solid background to become a DA. and a judge. i know it’s hard to accept that your precious teacher may have messed up, but don’t assume that of all the sex offenders in this nation, she is the one true innocent one.
Ms. Sorg was my favorite teacher I had in Middle School and I’m disgusted you feel fit to call her a “pedophile” and a “rapist” without concrete evidence. I believe in “innocent until proven guilty.” Allegations made by the prosecutor that letters once existed does not count as independent evidence
Actually I believe it takes brains to even become an attorney whether that is a criminal defense attorney or a D.A. Many judges also come from the ranks of defense attorneys, not just D.A.’s.
Now as to holding district attorneys to a higher regard than that of a defense attorney I would direct you to the Duke Lacrosse Case where Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong not only had the cased tossed for his misconduct but was also disbarred by the state of North Carolina.
While I’m not a huge fan of defense attorneys, they are essential part of our criminal justice system. Their job is to put forward the best possible defense for their client.
This is why cases are judged in a court of law rather than a court of public opinion. Ms. Sorg will have her day in court and a jury of her peers will hopefully judge the case upon the evidence put forward by both attorneys.
thank you brian for being so level-headed. I agree that DAs make mistakes, and that this Sorg issue will be hashed out with time. However, Mike Nifong is the only DA of recent memory to make such a large mistake, and he paid dearly for it. He has reached near household-name status. As a percentage, most DAs do their best because the price to pay is so dear. If you scan the papers, and these websites Sorg has popped up on, something that becomes strikingly clear is that there are hundreds of similar cases happening every day in this country. And with most of those cases, there is a whole population of ex-students and ex-fans who are stunned, who thought they knew the person, who had cared for the person. Sorg was everyone’s favorite teacher, but thinking she’s the greatest thing when you’re 13 years old has NOTHING to do with who she really is. Like I said, it will hash itself out, but the odds are against her, like it or not. It is only a tiny percentage of cases where the prosecution has gone through the trouble of coming up with false accusations. It’s like any scandal– nobody thinks it’s gonna happen to them, to their town. It’s time for reality to set in, kids. She’s been charged. She will always have been charged, even if this gets thrown out. Our legal system has established that level of suspicion, based on evidence none of us have access to. Believing that the entire legal system is out to get her is fun for conspiracy junkies, but like it or not, our system works to some extent, and the system has found enough to charge her with four felonies.
Good point. Here’s three similar cases, three teachers/coaches, and comments made by stunned kids who just can’t believe it… Oh, and these three are just the cases from LAST WEEK. There are hundreds every few months
http://badbadteacher.com/page/2/
In regard to Keri Ann Brekne, a 28 y/o seventh grade teacher in NJ. Boy, does she look normal. Except… she just plead guilty to 5 counts of aggravated indecent assault for having sex with a 14 y/o girl. Look at the comments made as her case unfolded… look familiar? Albany isn’t special at all. This is happening all over the country, all of the time. People never think it’ll happen to someone they know, well guess what? There are thousands of defiant ex students out there, just like you, trying to make excuses.
To the person who posted the comments under the names of “Q”, “lawyer”, “in the know”, “Thanks”, “Albany is not alone”, and “Wow”,
I noticed that you posted the six comments under different usernames, although you always use the same IP address. I encourage you to use a consistent name so people are clear that these comments come from a single person. Thanks!
Linda (Linjun)
My bad. Sorry. I am a lawyer, I am wowed, and I still insist Albany is not alone.
Consistent,
How do you know that Sorg/defense has admitted the existence of these letters? It doesn’t say this in the article.. and why would the defense even offer this up, before a trial, when it’s trying to claim that there is no evidence?
San Jose Mercury News, 3/27/08
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_8713887
” A judge also has scheduled an evidentiary hearing in the case. At issue is whether oral testimony about letters that may have been sent by the defendant, Kay Sorg, to the alleged victim are admissible in court. The letters have since been destroyed, according to Sorg’s attorney, Liz Grossman.
“This is a very positive development in the case,” Grossman said of the hearing. “Anybody looking at it from a legal perspective would appreciate that the prosecution is not on a good, strong basis legally.”
Grossman said witnesses read the letters more than a decade ago and can’t remember exactly what they said. She said she believes the oral testimony is “absolutely, not remotely admissible as evidence.”"
Um, witnesses read the letters. She’s trying to get their testimony thrown owt, not the fact that there were letters. She has, in effect, acknowledged the existence of said letters. Hmmm. Maybe these allegations are not completely out of the blue.
Consistent,
thanks for the link, I agree that the fact these letters were written is troubling for Sorg.. If not legally, it still looks mighty suspicious. Still, I wonder why her defense would admit the existence if we know they’ve been destroyed. And I wonder how Sorg’s lawyer is so sure they’ve been destroyed? all details that we’ll never know, I suppose..
Tom
what happened at the May 30, 2008 hearing?
I second the Albany Parent… is there a followup on this article
Consistent, have you heard anything about the hearing?
Perhaps Ms. Fan can make a quick call to the DA’s office to verify, but it is my impression that not much happened on May 30. It is also my impression that there is a hearing scheduled in late July where not much may or may not happen…
The hearing scheduled for May 30 was canceled. The court said that there could be one in July. It is a pity I can’t follow the case closely currently because I am spending my summer in Beijing.
What is the latest on this story? There was supposed to be another hearing in July and it’s now September. Has the case been dropped?
[...] preliminary hearing of Kay Sorg’s case, which had originally been scheduled for last week, was postponed to Nov. [...]