Suspended sentence for woman who took child to burglary

PALMER — A woman who brought her 4-year-old daughter along to burglarize a home for a second time reached the end of her case Friday.

Diana Palin, half-sister of Todd Palin, husband of former Gov. Sarah Palin, received what’s called a “suspended imposition of sentence.” Essentially, if she maintains a clean record as a law-abiding citizen, completes drug treatment and otherwise complies with the court’s orders, she won’t have a felony record.

Palin had already spent five months in jail awaiting sentencing. Her time in Akeela House also counts as time served.

“Although it’s an extremely close call, I believe a suspended imposition of sentence is appropriate,” Superior Court Judge Vanessa White said before addressing Palin directly.

“There is no reason you can’t succeed on this probation. You have everything going for you.”

Palin was arrested in April 2009. Police said at the time that she was caught essentially red-handed. A homeowner who’d already had $400 cash stolen from him two days prior saw her pull into his driveway on Mill Site Circle and hid in a bathroom while she entered his house. The homeowner detained her and called police. At some point Palin’s 4-year-old daughter wandered into the house.

At Friday’s hearing, Assistant District Attorney Paul Roetman said that as investigators started looking at the case, they found that Palin had been doing similar things before in her own neighborhood, sometimes using her daughter as cover. For instance, the girl would ask to use a person’s bathroom, which would give Palin a pretext to get into the house and find prescription medications and other things to steal.

He said that bringing the daughter along was no small thing. The homeowner that eventually caught Palin said as much in conversations with the district attorney’s office.

“In defending his home, he very well could have endangered that child,” Roetman said. He argued that a suspended imposition of sentence was not appropriate.

Palin’s attorney, Josh Fannon, said the burglary on Mill Site Circle simply wasn’t comparable to the other thefts in Palin’s neighborhood.

“The other cases described (in a report prepared for the sentencing hearing) are my client lying and being devious,” he said.

He pointed to Palin’s actions since the burglary. She’s currently in an 18-month program of very intensive residential drug treatment at Akeela House in Anchorage. Palin was addicted to opiate painkillers at the time of the burglary. Rarely, he said, has he had a client who’s paid restitution to her victims on the day she was sentenced. But that morning, Fannon said, Palin’s family cut a $2,600 check to pay her victim back. The money, he said, came from Palin’s own funds.

Fannon called as a witness Dorothy Pickles, Akeela House’s acting program manager.

Pickles said Palin had shown great progress in the program. What setbacks she’s had were nothing out of the ordinary. As for the burglary itself, Pickles said it was clear to her that Palin wanted someone to step in. She was seeking help.

“If she’d gone into Anchorage and hit random houses she clearly would have had more success,” Pickles said.

But stealing from neighbors who knew her and from the same house twice? “It’s a cry for help, really,” Pickles said. Such an act is not uncommon among addicts, she said.

“They’ll do something really stupid,” Pickles said.

As for Palin, during her turn to speak, she choked up and took a pause to collect herself in describing how bad she feels for placing her daughter in harm’s way.

“I’m so ashamed for all the hurt that I’ve caused,” she said. “I exposed her to danger, dishonesty and stealing.”

As for the homeowner, who was in court to observe the proceedings, Palin turned around in her seat to address him directly.

“I appreciate the kindness that you showed my daughter,” she said. “You showed her compassion because you recognized that it was not her fault.”

She said she didn’t feel she could ask him for forgiveness, but hoped he would feel a measure of peace knowing that when he caught her he may well have saved her life.

Fannon said that even though his client counts the governor in office at the time of her arrest as a relative, he hoped his client’s last name wouldn’t factor at all into the way the system treated her.

“I don’t think it should help her, but I don’t think it should hurt her,” he said.

For her part, White said Palin’s name didn’t factor into her decision.

“That’s not about her last name,” the judge said. “It’s about whether or not she has a likelihood of rehabilitation. I do find that her prospects of rehabilitation are much better than most people I see in this courtroom.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.