Jerome A Ballarotto

We hired him back in December 2016 when my last lawyer refused to get us access to the evidence or to take the case to trial after wasting 3 years. Ballarotto promised to take the case to trial and took an $80,000 dollar deposit for trial. After taking the money he refused to take the case to trial a...nd continuously cursed at me, my mother, and my father. After a few months of this, he told us that the prosecutor would drop the charges to a single 3rd degree charge which could be expunged and that I would be put into an "Intensive Supervision Program" in which I would be released from jail in 2 months. He said that he would return the $80,000 he took for trial and that the prosecutor would return property taken from my house. We had ran out of money after our expert had taken over $30,000 and still not examined the evidence. In order for me to go back to work and for the $80,000 Ballarotto had taken, we relented to taking the plea deal so as to not lose our home which had been heavily mortgaged to pay for my defense. After the plea hearing, he went on a one month vacation to Florida and refused to meet with us before sentencing. At sentencing, the judge completely disregarded the plea deal and I was then convicted of a 2nd and 4th degree crime and sentenced to 4 years in prison, even though I had not pled guilty nor had a trial to those charges. In addition, the Judge then imposed $3000 dollars in fines which we could not afford. I was not permitted to speak at sentencing, nor were my parents who were present. Ballarotto refused to show dozens of letters from the community in my support, kept hidden my charity work, and then made up a story that I was seeing counseling. He lied to misrepresent my college and post highschool education. He helped the prosecutor to paint a false image of me. The court would not allow me to speak or take back the plea, despite the fact the judge had rejected the terms of the plea deal. When I was in prison, I tried to appeal my case, but he would not visit me for over 2 months while the prison system kept moving me from prison to prison. They did not even provide me with a change of clothing for the first 2 months I was kept captive. I had no access to legal materials, phone calls, nor email during this time. I had sporadic access to mail. When my parents were finally able to contact me over 2 months later, they revealed that Ballarotto refused to return the money he stole, and that they had been continually told that I would be released after 2 months in prison. Through correspondence, I had told them that the ISP program hadn't contacted me at all contrary to their regular practice with other prisoners, yet Ballarotto told them that he was actively working with ISP to make sure I would get it. When I first spoke to my parents after over 2 months in prison, I told them about the rejection letter from ISP. At that point I was able to yell at them for what the court had done to me. My parents still hadn't realized that I was sentenced to 4 years in prison, nor aware of the fines that were imposed. Ballartto had been lying to them during this time and misleading them. When my parents confronted him with the rejection letter, he then lied and said "well, he'll be out in 9 months with parole." My parents, then aware of his lies then confronted him with the fact that I had actually been sentenced to 4 years and the earliest possible parole was a year. He still had not returned the money he had taken for trial. I am currently suing him for the money he stole as well as damages. After a several months in prison, I learned about a pre-sentence report which we were never given. It was different than the plea I had agreed to, though it was lesser than the sentence I received. I also received the plea papers which showed the original plea being crossed out and alternate charges and sentences being blatantly written in with a different pen than which was used to originally fill it out and sign.