By Guy Leonard, County Times
HOLLYWOOD, Md. (June 12, 2008)—The attorney for Mark Andrew Panowicz, the man convicted of inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl at a drunken party at his home back in 2006 is asking a District Court judge to reconsider his client’s sentence.
Fort Washington-based attorney James Papermeister, in an emergency motion to Judge Stephen L. Clagett, said his client could be fired from his job as a senior manager with telecommunications firm Sprint Nextel if he’s not allowed work release to accommodate the company’s policy that Panowicz be on call 24 hours a day.
In sentencing Panowicz to 18 months in county jail in May for the assault on the young girl, Judge Clagett also authorized work release for Panowicz.
“It was clearly not the court’s intention that its sentence result in Mr. Panowicz losing his job, which is the primary basis of support for his two children, his home, his fiancée and her two children, his mother and even a significant source of support for his ex-wife,” Papermeister wrote in his motion to the court.
“In short, the loss of a job… would be totally devastating and would destroy Mark Panowicz.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel J. White, who prosecuted Panowicz, said he would oppose the defense motion.
White had asked for a 10-year prison sentence for Panowicz suspended down to five years, but Judge Clagett opted for the 18-month sentence instead.
At Panowicz’s trial back in February, his accuser testified that he started to rub the small of her back when she was asleep in one of the rooms of his house. The victim testified that she and other teenagers, who had been invited there by Panowicz’s son, had been drinking heavily and became intoxicated. The victim had to be carried to one of the rooms after she had become sick.
The victim testified that she awoke after feeling someone touching her and saw Panowicz on the floor next to the bed when she turned around to see who was there.
It was revealed after Judge Clagett found Panowicz guilty that the defendant had a conviction for a similar crime in Charles County.
At his trial, Panowicz was also charged with eight other offenses, consisting of contributing to the delinquency of minors and furnishing alcohol to minors. But those charges were dropped during the trial.
The reconsideration hearing was scheduled for July 12 at District Court in Leonardtown.
RELATED INFORMATION:
Man Who Touched Minor Sentenced To 18 Months Jail Time, June 5, 2008
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