Judge Slashes Molester's Sentence From 18 Years to 18 More Months

A child molester who had been sentenced to 18 years will instead be released in 18 months, after Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eric M. Johnson said onetime patent lawyer Stanley D. Schwartz had gotten the "jolt to his system" he needed by having been sent to the state penitentiary.

Johnson also said he had "somewhat blindsided" Schwartz with the original sentence, which was handed down after Schwartz agreed to plead guilty last year.

The new sentence will allow Schwartz, 66, to move to the Montgomery County jail, generally considered an easier place to serve time than the state prison system. He gave up credit for the time he has served.

Schwartz was charged in three cases. Prosecutors said that in 2006, he climbed into the bed of a foreign exchange student from Kuwait who was staying with him and fondled the 15-year-old. Before that, authorities said, he fondled a 13-year-old female relative and a 15-year-old male friend of his son's. And at Schwartz's original sentencing hearing last year, his own children testified against him, asking Johnson to impose the longest term possible.

"We are extremely disappointed" with the sentence reduction, Amy J. Bills, an assistant state's attorney who handled the case, said yesterday. Prosecutors have no right to appeal the change.

David C. Driscoll, Schwartz's attorney, said the new sentence was more in line with what his client should have received under state sentencing guidelines. The judge "thoughtfully looked at the entire situation," Driscoll said, adding that his client is "very pleased" with the sentence, which probably will make it easier for him to participate in counseling. After his release, Schwartz faces five years of supervised probation.

In court papers asking the judge to reduce the sentence, Driscoll argued that his client was paying a steep price in the state prison system.

"Stanley Schwartz suffers daily from the harsh and unintended effects of the sentences imposed in his cases," Driscoll wrote. "He endured persistent threats from inmates." Schwartz felt "fearful and isolated" in prison, Driscoll said.

Prosecutors countered that Schwartz was to blame for his long sentence in the state system.

"The defendant placed himself in this situation," Bills wrote. "His choices and actions are why his family turned away from him, why he lost his license, and why he is serving a sentence in the [Maryland] Department of Corrections."

From his bench yesterday, Johnson said Schwartz had undergone such a harsh change that he had gotten the message.

"He needed to have an appropriate sign of his being held accountable for these acts," Johnson said. "For an upper-class lawyer, [with a] successful practice in a firm, living that type of lifestyle to go to jail, to go to jail for any time at all, is a shock to his system, and that's what he's gotten."