 Attorney Jeffrey Deskovic (left) and Thomas Shaffer On January 28, 2012, 25-year-old Thomas Shafer was visiting his mother, Theresa, in her home in Lisle, New York. At one point, she spotted him in her bedroom looking in her jewelry box. When he realized she saw him, he quickly closed the jewelry box and left the room.
The following day, Theresa discovered that several of her rings were missing, including a $1,600 diamond engagement ring, and called police. Only the engagement ring had significant value; the others were costume jewelry. Police visited pawnshops and found the costume jewelry, but the engagement ring was not recovered.
On February 19, 2012, Shafer was arrested on charges of stealing the rings. On June 27, 2012, Shafer pled guilty in Broome County Supreme Court to fourth-degree grand larceny of property worth more than $1,000. He was sentenced to five years on probation and ordered to make restitution of $1,825.
At the time, Shafer was struggling with drug addiction. Ultimately, he got off drugs and moved to Kentucky, where he became a preacher. After he relapsed and got clean for good, he then worked at a drug treatment center, supervising eight employees. He enrolled at Asbury University in 2019 and graduated in December 2022 with a degree in business management.
He married, fathered a child, and began working for his father-in-law’s engineering services firm. In 2023, he mentioned to his mother that he was unable to be licensed as a land surveyor because of his felony conviction.
To his surprise, his mother revealed that she had found the engagement ring not long after she reported it stolen. She had never told anyone because she was unaware that the engagement ring, with its value of $1,600, was the object that elevated the theft of her rings to a felony.
Shafer had not stolen anything on the day he visited his mother. He had taken her costume jewelry, but on a different occasion three weeks earlier.
Shafer then reached out to an attorney referral service in Binghamton, New York, looking for a lawyer to represent him in a post-conviction motion to vacate his conviction. They referred him to a local law firm and he retained them, with attorney Garrett Lyons assigned to the case. After six months, Lyons then went to work at the Broome County District Attorney's office.
Because of the conflict of interest, the case was turned over to Special Prosecutor Kurt Schrader. Another attorney at the local law firm, Jacob Sher, then began representing Shafer. Sher then reached out to The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, founded by Jeffrey Deskovic, who became an attorney after he was exonerated by DNA testing for a murder and rape he did not commit. Deskovic had spent 16 years in prison prior to his exoneration. Sher asked Deskovic to collaborate in representing Shafer.
Ultimately, Sher and Deskovic reached out to Schrader. After conducting his own investigation, Schrader agreed that Shafer had a meritorious defense.
On August 30, 2024, a motion to vacate Shafer’s conviction was filed in Broome County Supreme Court.
“While Ms. Shafer did not apprise law enforcement of the fact that she found her diamond engagement ring before Mr. Shafer’s sentencing – which would doubtless have corrected this comedy of errors at inception – law enforcement never asked, and furthermore, she did not understand the legal implications of her discovery,” the motion said. “The stolen jewelry was assumed by the parties” to exceed the $1,000 value that escalated the theft to a felony, the motion said.
On September 17, 2024, the prosecution agreed to the motion to vacate the charge and the case was dismissed.
– Maurice Possley
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