For almost the entire proceeding yesterday before U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno, Jessica Eads sat next to her ex-husband, Dr. Lee Kirsch, and held her head low with a somber, heartbroken look.
Eads did not appear to look up once to see Kirsch, who wore a rumpled army-green prison suit with a gray T-shirt underneath and flat navy-blue fabric slipper-shoes.
"It's unimaginable I think for parents," Kirsch's attorney, Ron Greenblatt, told reporters after the hearing. "You know you have a kid, a young woman that you think's at Drexel and you think is doing well. You know she's had some problems in the past. And then you get a call for this kind of case. I think the only word to use is devastating."
Kirsch, who will be 23 on Sunday, pleaded guilty to charges related to her involvement in the identity-theft scam with her former love, Edward Kyle Anderton. Their scheme fleeced at least 16 victims, mostly friends, bar patrons, classmates and neighbors, of about $116,000, and they tried to steal another $122,000, prosecutors said.
She was charged with conspiracy, access-device fraud, aggravated identity theft, bank fraud and money laundering. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 69 years in prison.
A former sorority sister, a "Vagina Monologues" thespian and a bright international area studies student who met with Prince Charles to discuss global issues, Kirsch was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs by U.S. marshals.
She told Robreno she that is taking Lexapro, described as an anti-depressant, and other medications prescribed by physicians. The bespectacled defendant said she's receiving treatment for "mental illness."
At the end of the hearing, Robreno ordered Kirsch to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Kirsch has been held in the Federal Detention Center, 6th and Market streets, since July 2 when she surrendered to authorities. Greenblatt said that since Kirsch must serve two years consecutively for one of the charges, "it would be best" that she begin serving sooner rather than later.
The former Starbucks barista had been under house arrest here because federal authorities were alerted by California investigators of her alleged credit-card theft in Contra Costa County. She had been living in Novato in an apartment near the house where she lived with her mother and stepfather, and allegedly used a fellow Starbucks employee's card to buy over $500 worth of goods at Ikea and a local drug store.
Her additional criminal behavior, which occurred while awaiting court proceedings in Philadelphia on similar charges, will probably add time to her sentence, prosecutors have said. She's probably looking at six to seven years of prison, said Louis Lappen, Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Kirsch was sent back to the detention center after yesterday's plea hearing.
She is to appear in court again on Oct. 17 for sentencing.
Anderton faces about five years for his crimes. His sentencing hearing has been set for Sept. 19, also before Robreno. *
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