Big Bag of Crazy Jury Recommends Probation and a Fine

 

SAN ANGELO, TX -- Chelsea Jo Strube will not go to prison for arson after a Tom Green County jury recommended to visiting Senior District Judge Brock Jones a sentence of ten years in prison suspended for community supervision and a $10,000 fine.  

The jury heard testimony throughout the day Monday in the punishment phase of the trial.  The same jury on Friday found Strube guilty of arson in the Sept. 8, 2015 torching of Shelby Siler's car in the Deadhorse Bar parking lot in the 200 block of S. Chadbourne St. after a week long trial. 

Arson is a second degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.  Because Strube had not been convicted of a prior felony, she was eligible for community supervision probation.  

District Attorney Allison Palmer began her case Monday morning by telling jurors she planned on putting the victim on the stand and that the jury had the opportunity to put all the evidence together from the guilt/innocence phase of the trial along with new evidence in the punishment phase before reaching a decision on punishment. 

Palmer first called the victim, Shelby Siler, to the witness stand.  Siler testified that she believed Strube followed her after she left the Concho Pearl where she worked.  Siler said she drove to an apartment complex then to her boyfriend's house because she was afraid of Strube.  Siler told the jury her family wanted her to move away from San Angelo because they were afraid for her life. 

Palmer then called Tom Green County Library employee Heather Ortiz to the witness stand.  Ortiz testified that Strube worked in an office next to the Stephens Central Library downtown.  Ortiz said she backed into a pickup Strube was driving causing damage.  She said Strube threatened her when she refused to give insurance information to Strube in a timely manner.  Ortiz testified that she believed Strube followed her from the parking lot at the Stephens Library downtown across town to the Bluff subdivision.  She said she was terrified and called 911.  Police were dispatched to the area of Jim Bass Ford.  Ortiz testified Strube stopped following her somewhere in the Bluffs. 

Next on the witness stand for the prosecution was Tom Green County Library employee Kacey Dees.  Dees testified that he witnessed Strube's black SUV whip around at a high rate of speed to follow Ortiz.  The next witness was Vanessa Hartel, also an employee of the library. Hartel testified that she watched what she described as Strube's black SUV almost attempt to run Ortiz down in the parking lot behind the library.  Hartel said, "Strube looked Manic!"

Palmer's final witness Monday was Jayson Zapata; a police officer with the San Angelo Police Department who testified Ortiz seemed scared.  

The the District Attorney rested her case.  

Defense attorney Gonzalo Rios called Roger Strube to the witness stand.  Roger testified that he went to the library parking lot and confronted Ortiz just to get her insurance information in an attempt to get the damage she caused to his truck fixed.  Mr. Strube testified that he kept pressuring his daughter to get that information and when she couldn't, he took it upon himself to resolve the situation.  Mr. Strube became emotional on the stand as he looked across the room at his daughter. 

Then came the moment the trial was waiting for; the defendant, Chelsea Strube took the witness stand. 

After walking though her education and work history, Chelsea testified that she didn't follow Ortiz and she didn't follow Shelby Siler.  She cried on the witness stand with a dozen or more of her family and friends setting behind her defense attorney.  

Chelsea Strube testified that she was engaged to a 'wonderful man' and they are set to be married on September 28, 2019.  There were more tears on the witness stand and in the gallery from her friends and family.  Strube testified that in 2014 she was texting and driving and that led to her crashing one of her father's work trucks.  She suffered a broken back in that crash. 

She also testified under questioning from her attorney that she had a wonderful support system for probation and that she regretted the day she met Brendon Farnsworth, her ex-boyfriend.  Strube testified under questioning from D.A. Palmer that she earned a Law Degree from Texas Welseyan University in 2011 and took the Texas Bar Exam five times.  She has yet to pass the bar.  

Strube also testified that she signed Stephanie Goodman's name to a motion for a continuance for a client.  

Strube then testified that she is engaged to be married on September 28, 2019.  She cried again on the witness stand describing her fiance. 

After Chelsea Strube finished testifying, her attorney Gonzalo Rios called Tom Green County Constable Pct. 2 Deen Dickson to the witness stand.  Dickson is a longtime resident of Wall and testified he has known Strube all of her life.  Dickson testified as a character witness. 

Then Rios called Justin Strube to the witness stand.  Justin is Chelsea's younger brother.  He told the jury that Chelsea is a fine person and a good sister and he likes her fiance. 

Rios then called Bobby Jackson to the witness stand.  Jackson testified that Strube made signs for his family that read, "Happy First Day of School" which his children saw on their way past her house on the first day of school.  

Next on the stand was Brooklyn Bloodworth who testified she was a lifelong friend of Strube.  Bloodworth said Chelsea was one of her oldest friends and "She'd do anything for me!" 

Rios then brought San Angelo Attorney Stephanie Goodman back to the stand.  Goodman testified Monday that it was common for Strube to sign her names to court documents for her when Goodman was unavailable and they were facing a court deadline.  

Then came the game changer.  

Rios called Chelsea Strube's fiance to the witness stand.  Chris Wood is a well-known taxidermist with two children and a thriving business.  Wood choked up when he told the jury he kept after Chelsea to marry him and get on with their lives.  Again there were lots of tears in the courtroom.   

Next, the defense attorney called Wood's son, Dakota, to the stand.  Dakota is 18-years-old.  He testified he was glad Chelsea Strube is in his dad's life because she makes him happy.  

Gonzalo Rios' tenth and final witness was LaDonna Burton who is a paralegal for San Angelo attorney Shawntell McKillop.  Burton testified that Ortiz used inappropriate language in their encounter in the parking garage.  

At 2:30 p.m. both the prosecution and defense rested and closed their cases.  Then Judge Jones read the charge to the jury.  

There were five sentencing options for the jury: 1) 2 to 20 years in prison with no fine; 2) 2 to 20 years in prison with a fine of up to $10,000; 3) 2 to 10 years plus community supervision; 4) 2 to 10 years plus community supervision and a fine of up to $10,000; 5) Probation.  

The jury retired to deliberate the sentence at 3:12 p.m. Monday.  At 4:57 p.m., the bell rang in courtroom A alerting the bailiff that the jury had reached a decision.  Judge Jones read the jury's decision at 5:03 pm.  

The sentence recommended by the jury was ten years in prison suspended for community service and a fine of $10,000 to be paid immediately.  

Judge Jones told the court that Strube will undergo a pre-sentencing interview (PSI) and Chelsea Strube will be sentenced on July 31, 2019 at 10 a.m.

 

Subscribe to the LIVE! Daily

The LIVE! Daily is the "newspaper to your email" for San Angelo. Each content-packed edition has weather, the popular Top of the Email opinion and rumor mill column, news around the state of Texas, news around west Texas, the latest news stories from San Angelo LIVE!, events, and the most recent obituaries. The bottom of the email contains the most recent rants and comments. The LIVE! daily is emailed 5 days per week. On Sundays, subscribers receive the West Texas Real Estate LIVE! email.

Required

Most Recent Videos

Comments

Many women wear their tears like jewelry, and the charade can work wonders for them, as evidenced here.

Had a man committed any of the alleged offenses, followed by an attempted terroristic act which could've potentially killed countless innocent people, he'd be facing some serious time, irrespective of how many crocodile tears he can shed in court.

The incessant beating of the "equality" drum oddly ceases, when a woman's faced with owning up to her misdeeds and her acceptance of the consequences which follow.

The next time some male knucklehead gets popped with a pound or two of weed, let's see if a judge and jury gives a shit if he has wedding bells in his future, or has taken part in any arts and crafts.

It's her poor ole Daddy that oughta be crying, he's gonna be stuck paying thru the nose for his sorry arse daughter....again. Psycho woman is sorry as gully dirt.

Probation being offered to a first time offender is common and has nothing to do with gender. Also, it's quite comical that you come to a criminals defense if he's popped with a pound of weed, as if that's somehow proof of your point.

Seems cut and dry to me, are you positing there is objectively gender discrimination in our justice system, or are these just purely subjective opinions for the fun of open forum dialect?

Within the sentencing phase, the punishment should be proportional to the crime which was committed

Imposing a punishment which is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime, and contributes nothing towards the intended goals of the punishment in question is not only counterproductive, but is arguably unconstitutional (see the 8th amendment).

Marijuana is illegal, and laws are laws, irrespective of our thoughts about it, however, there's something seriously wrong when someone can face spending a third of his life behind bars for possession of a plant, while some jaded bitch can attempt an act of domestic terrorism, and get off with a fine and a few visits with a probation officer.

My post cited two common miscarriages of justice, in regards to this case and countless others:

1) The absence of the principle of proportionality in the punishment phase.

2) The fact that women are disproportionately less likely than men to be incarcerated before their trials, and over half of these women are never sentenced to prison, is a demonstrable display of gender bias within the criminal justice system.

Cite something other than yourself and I might begin to look at the possibility that something may indeed be afoul. Until I see some hard facts, it seems like pure conjecture on your part to state that there is disproportionate sentencing going on... Although I will give you points for tooting a popular horn.

Strube was given probation for a first time offense, and allowed to bond out until her court hearing, both of which are common occurrences for male's and female's alike in the justice system.

Maybe a search for "gender bias / criminal sentencing" would shed some light on the topic for you. As for the disproportionate amount of men being carted away in cuffs, before ultimately being locked away vs. women who remain free before their slap on the wrist -- that may take a bit of research of random cases, locally and abroad, but the stats are there and the facts remain.

I've taken you to school on various topics here, Nate, and honestly, it's not exactly a labor of love I particularly enjoy. If you're in the dark on certain issues of discussion here, take some time to do your homework, or just quit coming to class.

This isn't between just you and me, remember there's an audience to whom you've proclaimed that an inequality exists... When you are challenged about your claims, you cite YOURSELF. If THAT is what you call schooling US on how the justice system disproportionately affects men, then buddy, you're worse off than I thought. I can't stop laughing right now, I literally had to stop typing for a minute. Usually you are quick to throw up a link, even if its content is purely conjecture, this time, we get nothing!

I refuse to believe it's true just because you said it, I can't speak for everyone else, maybe they want to blindly follow along with every dingbat that post's an opinion... All I'm saying is, it remain's that- an opinion- until you can prove otherwise... Someone who believed what they said would have no problem allowing for others to pick apart the linked support for themselves, isn't that something you learned about journalism.

2 weeks ago you claim to have cried to the police about me for absolutely NOTHING, now you want people to believe that you are credible when it comes to typing up opinion's on justice?

Anyone who does any research in the matter can see, that men "by a healthy margin", commit more crime's than women in the first place, and there is no proof that you can point to that shows those numbers to be a result of "disproportionate punishment".

I openly welcome anyone to read the following link that "just makes sense". Bottom line is, men are bigger, stronger, more violent, and more likely to re-offend, none of that sounds disproportionate. https://law.jrank.org/pages/1250/Gender-Crime-Differences-between-male-female-offending-patterns.html

Actually, Nate, your posts here confirm that you agree strongly with two important premises to the arguments that Lares and others have been making now that the cultural changes of the 60's have borne their fruit: (1) There are significant, inherent differences between various groupings of human beings, and those differences are especially prominent between men and women. (2) Women, for whatever reason, *appear* to offend less, though the article at the link you've provided offers a possible reason for this.

* * *
From https://law.jrank.org/pages/1250/Gender-Crime-Differences-between-male-female-offending-patterns.html :
The criminal justice system's greater "leniency" and "chivalry" toward females may explain a portion of the lower official offending rates of women in comparison to men. Likewise, the justice system's tendency to be relatively less lenient and chivalrous toward females today may help explain recent increases in levels of female arrests. Although there appear to be relatively small differences between adult women and men in likelihood of arrest or conviction, women defendants do appear to have a lower probability of being jailed or imprisoned. This difference appears to be related to a variety of factors: pregnancy, responsibilities for small children, the greater likelihood to demonstrate remorse, as well as perceptions that women are less dangerous and more amenable to rehabilitation.
* * *

"Common sense" tells us a couple things about situations like the one covered in the article and about the more generalized effects of such phenomena in the wider society. Experience tells us that when women want to enact violence, they tend to use "violence by proxy" via relational aggression, ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-long-reach-childhood/201109/bullying-in-the-female-world ). They'll find a brother or other relative, boyfriend, or police officer etc. to beat you up for legitimate or fictional reasons. When women do offend, we tend to throw all kind of ideology out the window and emotion takes over. Men feel compelled to protect the vulnerable and have been conditioned to assume that an offending woman must have been compelled by extraordinary circumstances to have acted out. (How often are black women snubbed by both Feminist orthodoxy and the widely held perception of their greater psychological independence and physical resilience?) Women, ever mindful of group opinion, tend to side with the accused out of a sense of mutual cause and fear that their own actions might be judged harshly; better to excuse the inexcusable than to set an upsetting precedent.

We don't take violence from women seriously because we understand that they are physically weaker than men and, where most men have blinders inculcated by acculturation and a natural lack of understanding of the brutal impulse behind female relational aggression, (which rarely erupts into direct, physical aggression,) feminine instinct refuses to acknowledge anything that puts their own behavior into question. Basically, we can't judge women by the same standards as men. We know this and we don't do it, but the law requires that we do so.

The question in situations like this isn't, "should we be excessively hard on women in the name of fairness?" The question is, "what is justice?" I don't know the people involved in this case or what the details of it are beyond what I've read here. What I do know is that if we don't put our collective foot down when things literally "blow up," we've set a precedent that puts everyone in danger later on. It might seem "mean" in the short run, but no one respects a pushover.

Post a comment to this article here: