The Times Herald is reporting that Villanova senior JayVaughn Pinkston has been accused of violating his sentence of Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) by failing to make payments on his Restitution and Court Costs, by failing to complete his 375 hours of community service, and by failing to report to his probation officer since late fall 2014. The filing of the violation is technically a move to remove him from the program and force him to stand trial for the 2010 alleged assault.
ARD is a diversionary program for first time offenders accused of misdemeanors where the accused is supervised by the Court through a county probation office. It operates like probation, where the accused must complete community service, pay fines and restitution, report to a probation officer and refrain from any further criminal conduct. The accused never pleads guilty to the charges. If the accused is able to complete the program, they are entitled to have their charges expunged from their record. The penalty for the violation is removal from the program and being forced to stand trial. An individual's constitutional right to a speedy trial is waived at admission to the program for the very purpose of potential prosecution upon violation.
Online court records have yet to be updated to provide the exact details of the violation. This does appear to be the first time the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office has filed for a violation.Often times, a first time accusation of a violation for non-criminal conduct serves as a wake up call by the Commonwealth and results in some agreement that allows the accused to remain in the program with some extra effort required of the accused to bring himself into compliance with the terms of his sentence.
Unless the District Attorney or judge has it out for Pinkston, he should be able to remain out of jail and continue the hearing until after the season. His sentence is to be set on May 21, 2015. Court records can be found here: https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/CPReport.ashx?docketNumber=CP-46-CR-0000779-2011
It is important to remember that he is not accused of any additional criminal conduct so it would be unlikely that Villanova will suspend him after he was already suspended for an entire year for the underlying conduct. Also, even if convicted, as a first time offender with misdemeanor charges, it is unlikely that he would be facing any jail time if he were to be removed from the program and forced to stand trial. He has technically maintained his innocence thus far.
