Assault on TV journalist nets jail time
A controversial Pend Oreille County dog breeder was sentenced Friday to three days in jail, 20 days of community service and a $200 fine for whacking a television cameraman with her purse.
Jeanette Bergman’s attorney, Robin McCroskey, argued unsuccessfully that Bergman had been punished enough by numerous broadcasts of the videotaped assault.
“It has gone on and on,” McCroskey said. “It was played twice this morning.”
Newport, Wash., municipal prosecutor Dana Kelley sought the maximum 30-day jail term and $5,000 fine, noting Bergman previously had been convicted of delivering a controlled substance in 1983 and 16 counts of animal cruelty in 1997.
Bergman, 53, gained national notoriety from the animal-cruelty convictions, for which she served 30 days of electronically-monitored home confinement and 40 days of community service.
The convictions stemmed from a sheriff’s raid at Bergman’s Newport-area kennel that found pure-bred dogs with pus-oozing sores, intestines hanging out of their bodies and broken bones sticking through their skin.
Bergman lost a $4,000 Pend Oreille County District Court judgment last October to a Colbert man who said she sold him three English bulldogs with genetic defects. KREM-TV cameraman Brett Allbery videotaped Bergman as she emerged from the Hall of Justice in Newport, and she clobbered him with her purse.
Bergman apologized at the time and again Friday.
“I’m terribly sorry for this happening, and I take full responsibility,” Bergman said Friday.
She said she was ashamed of her behavior and the embarrassment it caused her children. Bergman pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault last month, as charged.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke III said he thought Bergman’s apology was sincere, but her crime “is just something that, in modern society, we’re not going to tolerate.” In addition to the jail time, community service and fine he imposed, Clarke ordered Bergman to pay her own jail and probation-supervision costs, which came to $977.
Clarke was assigned to the Newport case as a visiting Spokane County District Court judge. He subsequently became a Superior Court judge, and Friday’s sentencing was conducted in Spokane to accommodate his new schedule.