WARREN COUNTY, Ohio (WDTN) – A judge terminated the probation of Brooke Skylar Richardson on Tuesday, 14 months after she was sentenced on a charge of abuse of a corpse.
Richardson was sentenced to three years of community control last year. She was also sentenced to seven days in county jail but was credited for time served.
WLWT reported during her court appearance Tuesday, Richardson apologized, saying that since her sentencing, she has undergone a lot of treatment for her mental health.
“I’m working to get that better, I know it has been a short amount of time and I understand that it doesn’t seem like a lot at all, but in that year and two months I have been, you can say, I show remorse and I feel a lot of things, but it’s hard to show,” Richardson said. “I suffer a lot in silence and I do show remorse and I am very sorry.”
Richardson said that she requested her probation be terminated so she can fulfill her educational goals.
“I just want to show that I can be a normal person again,” Richardson said. “I just want to make everything right again as much as I can.”
According to WLWT, Judge Donald Oda ruled that due to Richardson’s charge being a low-level felony, her having no prior criminal history and being employed and going to school, there is no reason to invest time and resources of the probation department in supervising her.
“Probation is not punishment, probation is not rehabilitation, probation is the opportunity to demonstrate why it is that the state imprisoned term of 12 months in prison should not be imposed and if you can follow the rules, I don’t impose that sentence,” Oda said. “There is nothing in the three years that I have been supervising you that has happened that leads me to believe that you won’t follow those rules or that you’re going to commit any crimes in the future, so I am going to terminate your probation effective today.”
