JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A judge rejected a plea deal Thursday in the case of a woman accused of squatting in a Jacksonville home more than a year ago, suggesting the proposed punishment didn’t match the crime.
RELATED | Woman accused of squatting in Jacksonville home agrees to plead guilty, pay restitution to homeowner
Patti Peeples, the homeowner in this case, was surprised to find two women had moved into her Hogan’s Creek property in March 2023, claiming they were victims of a rental scam.
The women had recently been evicted from a nearby property, where they also claimed they were duped.
This homeowner wasn’t allowed inside her own property for weeks as the eviction case moved through the civil court system.
READ | I-TEAM: Court ordering women to leave rental property where owner says they’ve been squatting
One of the accused squatters was arrested in April and charged with criminal mischief and trespassing. After she was arrested, she still denied being involved to the I-TEAM.
Please note that News4JAX is not naming the woman because the charges she’s facing are misdemeanors.
The criminal mischief charge is related to broken windows at the property.
On Monday, it was revealed both sides had come to a plea agreement that would have seen the defendant serve 12 months probation and pay about $3,600 in restitution.
However, on Thursday, the judge saw additional evidence and decided to reject the plea agreement, meaning that the now-admitted squatter, faces the possibility of jail time.
Patti Peeples, who owned the home at the time the women moved in, spoke on the witness stand Thursday.
“I incurred significant cost and legal fees, lost a house sale, lost sleep, lost my sense of safety, and suffered substantial lost income. As a retiree, this really hurt me,” Peeples said.
The JSO officer who initially responded in this case testified Thursday that he suspected the defendant was committing fraud because in two cases where she claimed to have paid rent to a scammer, the addresses given for the alleged con artists were the same — a vacant building.
The judge also considered photos of the broken windows and extensive interior damage, which Peeples said she found at the house the same day the women were evicted.
The public defender in the case tried to keep those photos from the judge, noting the restitution in the case is related to just broken windows.
The damage done to the house where she lived rent-free went well beyond the broken windows; however, Peeples told News4JAX the criminal mischief charges only relates to the broken windows because that’s the only damage that the State Attorney’s Office felt they could prove the defendant did with video evidence. The defendant has denied tearing up the rest of the house.
“Well, I’m not bound to just cover the windows if I’m being asked to impose restitution,” Judge Julie Taylor said.
After reviewing the evidence, Taylor rejected the proposed plea agreement.
“I do not see how probation with conditions, including no victim contact and restitution without more is appropriate here. I think the damage is incredibly significant,” Taylor said.
On Thursday, given the choice between going to trial or entering a guilty plea now, the defendant pleaded guilty.
“Every little victory through this process is really meaningful, because I went almost a year with feeling so frustrated that I really just had no power,” Peeples said.
A new sentencing hearing has been set for later in July. The maximum sentence for each charge is a year in the Duval County jail, plus the potential for restitution.
This case inspired the unanimous passage of a new state law that aims to prevent this from happening to other homeowners, allowing police to immediately remove someone living in a home without a valid lease.