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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Karr offered a plea deal

Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

SANTA ROSA, Calif. – One-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr was offered a plea deal Tuesday on child pornography charges that would free him on probation.

Assistant District Attorney Joann Risse said prosecutors would waive three of the five child pornography possession charges against him if he pleaded guilty on two remaining charges.

Karr, 41, would get credit for time served and would be placed on probation for three years. He also would be required to register as a sex offender.

Defense lawyer Robert Amparan said that he would discuss the deal with Karr but that he still believes his client is innocent.

Amparan said the public had received a “false picture” of Karr, whom he described as a “Southern gentleman with a sense of humor.”

Karr’s bail was set at $200,000 after Judge Cerena Wong called him a flight risk. Karr spent several months in the Sonoma County jail in 2001 awaiting trial on the child porn charges and fled after being released.

Karr, a schoolteacher, was arrested Aug. 16 after making phone calls and writing e-mails suggesting he killed Ramsey, a 6-year-old beauty queen, in her Boulder, Colo., home in December 1996. He was returned to the United States from Thailand only to have the Ramsey case collapse.