CHARLOTTE, N.C. — First-time offenders in Mecklenburg County are often given the chance to get on deferred prosecution -- which if they straighten up -- will give them a clean record.
A public defender and the district attorney went to court Thursday to fight over the program.
Money is the issue.
If a defendant owes restitution, then the deferred prosecution is not free.
Rahman Bethea, 37, is a father of three and was an audio-visual technician.
"I definitely do not want to sit in this courtroom,” Bethea said. “I'm not a person who causes trouble or gets in trouble."
That was until last year, when he was arrested for embezzlement, a mistake that cost him his job, a roof over his head and his car.
"I applied to seems like thousands of jobs," he said.
Bethea finally found a way out, which was the deferred prosecution.
The district attorney offered him a deferred prosecution, but there was one problem and that was he couldn't afford it.
That was what Thursday’s hearing between a public defender and the district attorney was about -- over a policy that requires partial payment of restitution.
The defendant has to sign a stipulation that restitution must be paid down to $1,000, so if a person owes $1,800, like Bethea, he would have to pay $800 to qualify. The public defender has been arguing for years that some people just don't have the money.
"Its effect says that people who have the money are treated in one fashion by allowing them to participate in the program," public defender Kevin Tully said.
Prosecutors set the fee at $1,000 because it's the cut-off line between a felony and a misdemeanor.
The district attorney believes it's fair because everyone is treated the same way.
Tully was called to take the stand and District Attorney Andrew Murray was not called.
Both declined to talk to Channel 9 about this case.
The judge took the case under advisement and it not clear when he will rule.
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