Dibartolo Sentence May Go Up Prosecutor Says 20-26 Years Not Enough Because Former Deputy Should Be Held To ‘Higher Standard’

Convicted killer Tom DiBartolo could make legal history.

A day after the former deputy’s conviction late Friday, Prosecutor Jim Sweetser said he may seek a sentence exceeding the usual range of 20 to 26 years. Sweetser said the precedent for exceptional sentences then could be used in other cases where a law enforcement officer is convicted of a serious crime.

“Law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard,” Sweetser said. That - combined with DiBartolo’s blaming the crime on minorities and his erosion of the public’s trust in police - are factors that Sweetser is considering.

What precedent is set would depend on which of Sweetser’s arguments are agreed to by Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.

DiBartolo turned down requests for an interview Saturday.

His brother, Anthony DiBartolo, said the family may release a statement “when they’re ready, if they’re ever ready.”

But his mother swore her son is an innocent man. “I think it’s a travesty of justice. A mockery,” Ella DiBartolo said of the trial. “He said he didn’t do it. I’m his mother. I believe him.”

DiBartolo was convicted of killing his wife, Patty, in Spokane’s Lincoln Park in November 1996. He also suffered a gunshot wound, which prosecutors say was self-inflicted.

Now his mother said she mourns him as if he were dead. She claims DiBartolo has been railroaded by sheriff’s detectives and a mean-spirited media - leaving him in jail and her with a tainted name.

“I think he was led down the garden path like a lamb led to the slaughter,” she said. Whenever her son was portrayed in the press, it was as someone she never knew.

“They painted him out to be a monster. It was not the son I was proud of and his father was proud of.”

She claimed there was little effort to investigate her son’s claims that two black men were the ones who really shot him and killed his wife.

Now, that defense could get DiBartolo more time behind bars.

“Mr. DiBartolo blamed this on two black males, and we feel this could potentially be a factor to divide the community …,” Sweetser said.

Ella DiBartolo said she couldn’t spend much time in the courtroom; she was called as a witness. But what she did see disturbed her. “It was like a stage, and everyone was playing their parts. Almost not real.”

She claimed investigators made light of DiBartolo’s gunshot injury.

“They minimized his wound,” Ella DiBartolo said. “I tended to that wound.”

After the arrest, Ella said her son told her about inmates screaming obscenities at him from other cells. And she claimed investigators intimidated and interrogated her in February.

“They asked me the most ridiculous questions,” she said. “‘Did you ever say anything about O.J.?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, O.J.? Orange juice?”’

She called the whole thing “a dream that we can’t wake up from.”

Sweetser said DiBartolo tried to use his law enforcement training to get away with murder but won’t admit it.

“He’s in total denial.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEXT Sentencing for Tom DiBartolo is set for Jan. 21.