Story by KXAN Austin News’ Jim Swift
The jail
AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) — A unique and troubling legal case is unfolding in Williamson County. A young man named Jean Karlo Ponzanelli is in the county jail in Georgetown, facing a long prison term. That sentence would be followed by 10 years on the Texas Sex Offender Registry, except that, in this case, Ponzanelli stands to be deported to Mexico following his prison term.
So, what sort of crime could command such punishment?
Well, it turns out that when Ponzanelli was 17 years old, he was arrested for doing what thousands of other young people do every single day, but in his case, there was a catch. Our story begins with a telephone call from inside the Williamson County jail.
The call
When the phone rings, I’m startled. That ring has been a long time coming. Originally, I’d planned to connect with Ponzanelli in the jail, despite officials telling me that I would not be allowed to bring a camera or recording equipment inside.
For that to happen, he would have to put my name on his list of five people he wants to be allowed to visit him. According to jail policy, he can change that list only once a month.
On the appointed day, he adds my name. Yet when I arrive at the jail, the deputy at the desk tells me I won’t be allowed to see the prisoner. The public information officer for the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office tells me he just learned jail policy prohibits journalists from entering the jail. Family, friends and clergy are allowed only, he says.
The good news is Ponzanelli can call me, and I can record the conversation for broadcast. I get word to him through his friends and at an agreed-upon time, he calls, only to get a recorded message saying the telephone number he used for KXAN is “restricted.” His call never rings on my end. We schedule another try for the following day with the same result.
At the last minute, a friend offers a speaker phone at her house, so we rush to Round Rock, set up our gear, point a microphone at the speaker and wait. The telephone rings, and I’m startled. I recover, punch a button and the long-awaited interview begins.
The story
“Hello,” I say.
A recorded voice replies, “Hello, this is a collect call from—“
There’s a pause, long enough for Ponzanelli to say, “Jean.”
Then, the recorded voice continues, “—an inmate at the Williamson County Jail.”
When Jean Ponzanelli, a Round Rock skateboard enthusiast, was 17 years old, he had consensual sex with a 13-year-old girl he knew at a Williamson County high school.
Ponzanelli tells me, “If I would have known the age, I know I wouldn’t have done it. I figured she was two or three years older. I thought she was a year younger than me.”
In fact, Ponzanelli says the girl actually lied about her age. But when authorities discovered the relationship, he was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault. Georgetown criminal defense attorney Shawn Dick helped represent him.
“Sometimes in the criminal justice system, people are viewed as numbers and statistics,” Dick says. “It’s much different when you are meeting the families, and you’re talking to a scared, really, kid.”
Prosecutors offered a plea bargain, and Ponzanelli pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of attempted sexual assault. Under a deferred adjudication agreement, he would be on probation for 10 years, pay a $2,500 fine, serve 180 days in jail and his name would appear on the Texas Sex Offender Registry.
If Ponzanelli had anything going for him at all, it was his was friend, Casey Fewell, and her mother, Jan Fewell. Both were horrified to watch his descent into a nightmare legal situation, and both are now advocating for him.
Jan Fewell’s eyes swell with tears as she tells us, “I know he’s not a sexual predator. I know he doesn’t belong on that registry.”
Back on the phone, Ponzanelli is incredulous, “I mean, there’s millions of people in school having sex. Why am I the only person to have to get in trouble for it?”
“You know that for a fact?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Ponzanelli snaps.
“Your friends,” I press.
“Yeah, everything.” Ponzanelli says.
“A lot of them are having sex?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he assures me.
Jan Fewell is no longer crying. She’s thoughtful and direct.
“I think that’s the biggest message that people need to realize,” she says. “These kids are becoming more and more sexual at an earlier age.”
But the question is: Did Ponzanelli have an obligation to be sure of the girl’s age?
“I don’t really think they think like that,” Fewell argues. “I really don’t. ‘Let me see your ID,’ you know, you’re going to start carding your friends now?”
In any event, Ponzanelli served his jail time, but within weeks of his release, he was back behind bars, facing revocation of his parole.
On the phone, Ponzanelli’s frustration is rising, “My probation officer was making me do a lot more stuff than I could. It was kind of hard having this charge and getting a job, being 18 and she was telling me to move out of my house, because I can’t live within 1,000 feet or 2,000 feet of a park.”
“He has to pay all these different fees and fines and what have you,” Fewell says. “He works at a fast food restaurant. He hasn’t even gotten a car yet. He’s living at home with his mother. They add all this and then they go, ‘Oh, you’ve got to find another place to live.’ So where is he supposed to come up with this money?”
At one point, the Fewells actually thought about letting Ponzanelli stay with them.
“I’ll be honest with you,” she confides, “it scared the heck out of me, thinking they’re going to notify my neighbors that there’s someone from the Sexual Offenders Registry living at my house.”
The tears return, with a vengeance. “And now I feel horrible,” she says.
“That you didn’t let him move in?” I ask.
Unable to choke out an answer, Fewell just offers up a quick nod.
Believe it or not, it gets worse. On Ponzanelli’s paperwork, he said he was an American citizen. Turns out, his parents brought him to the U.S. as an infant.
On the phone, Ponzanelli’s voice drifts, “When I got here they told me that apparently, I’m illegal. I didn’t know I was, but I guess I am.”
High-profile Austin attorney Jim Sawyer tried to keep Ponzanelli from being deported to Mexico on top of everything else.
“I think being deported from a country where you live and where you are legally,” he tells me, “is a hideous consequence. I can’t imagine anything worse than being sent away from your home and your family for the rest of your life.”
Sawyer had filed a writ of Habeas Corpus, aimed at getting Ponzanelli’s guilty plea withdrawn. Were the writ to be granted, he would once more be facing the aggravated sexual assault charge, a first-degree felony, rather than the third-degree felony he pleaded to. There would be no conviction yet. At least, he would have a fighting chance.
But in the hallway, outside a state district courtroom in the Williamson County Justice Center, more trouble is brewing. Sawyer is in an intense conversation with Ponzanelli’s mother. She’s taking him to task, accusing him of failing to communicate enough with her. His reaction is quick and final. “I would be more comfortable withdrawing,” he tells her. He excuses himself and walks away.
Things look bad, really bad.
I turn to Fewell. “Do you see any way out of this for him?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Compassion and mercy and common sense,” she replies.
I’m staring at the telephone now.
“How are you getting by?” I ask Ponzanelli. “What do you tell yourself?”
His voice is weak. “Just, you know, I got to keep moving on,” he says. “All I can do is keep my head up. All I can do is pray from this end.”
So where does Ponzanelli go from here? Before Sawyer withdrew from the case, State District Judge Bert Carnes had scheduled another hearing in the case for June 10.
Before that hearing can occur, Ponzanelli will need a new attorney, perhaps someone appointed to represent him by the court.
As for the prosecution, I asked Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley for an interview on the Ponzanelli case. He declined.
In an e-mail, he told me, “I’ve read the file and think there is too much litigation pending on the issue in the Ponzanelli case for me to do an interview in any story where it is to be mentioned. I don’t want to be perceived as trying to influence the outcome in any direction. You’ve picked a good issue to discuss. Apart from the Ponzanelli case, I would be glad to talk about it, as it is a fascinating social question that has been debated in the legislative and public arena.”
The bottom line
This is not an isolated case.
Last year, a Human Rights Watch report titled, “No Easy Answers,” quoted a U.S. Department of Health and Welfare study of young Americans.
According to that study, “By age 14, more than one-third of the survey’s respondents reported genital play with another youth under the age of 18, and about one-fifth had started having sexual intercourse.”
Meanwhile, Ponzanelli has passed his 18th and 19th birthdays in the Williamson County Jail. At this writing, he remains jailed, without an attorney.
News story link here