CHAPTER 5
The criminal trial was three months later.
It was a media circus. Every local station covered it gavel to gavel. The two former fiancées testified. The charity accountants testified about the embezzlement. The ER doctor testified. Detective Martinez testified. The recording was played three times, every time leaving the jury in stunned silence.
The defense had nothing. No alibi. No evidence. No explanation for the recording, the bruises, the transfer papers, the other victims.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
Guilty. On all counts.
Eleanor Hale:
- Aggravated battery causing great bodily injury — 12 years
- Criminal coercion — 5 years
- Conspiracy — 3 years
- Embezzlement from three charities — 15 years
- Witness tampering — 4 years
Total: 39 years in state prison, no possibility of parole for 25.
At 67 years old, she would die behind bars.
Tyler Hale:
- Accessory to domestic violence — 3 years
- Conspiracy to commit coercion — 2 years
- Perjury at the preliminary hearing — 3 years
Total: 8 years.
The judge looked at Eleanor as she pronounced sentence, and said the words I will remember forever:
“You had every advantage a person could ask for. Wealth, education, status, respect. And you used every single one of them to hurt, threaten, and steal from women who had less than you. You beat a girl half your age on her wedding night because she would not give you something you had no right to. You raised a son who stood by and watched because you taught him power was more important than decency. You do not belong in society. You belong in a cage. And that is where you will stay.”
Eleanor screamed that the judge was corrupt, that the whole trial was a setup, that she’d appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.
May you like
She never did. Her appeals were thrown out six months later.
But the criminal trial was only half the battle.
