A 76-year-old woman who pleaded guilty last year to attempted forgery avoided jail time Wednesday, despite a judge’s assertion that she hasn’t accepted responsibility.
“You still haven’t come to grips with the fact that you committed a crime,” Pima County Superior Court Judge Clark Munger said before sentencing Marjorie Hagen three years of intensive probation. “It’s that type of self-delusion that has landed you where you are.”
Hagen took a plea agreement on Nov. 17 that could have landed her in prison for up to 2.5 years. Her attorney, Brick Storts, lobbied for probation due to Hagen’s age and physical condition.
Hagen had surgery on her left eye on Monday and is legally blind, Storts said. She came to her sentencing with a service dog.
Hagen was charged with attempted forgery in March 2007 after she endorsed and deposited an $11,000 check into a bank account she shared with Roger Sammis, whom Hagen had power of attorney over.
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Sammis, though, had died the day before Hagen deposited the check, court records show.
Hagen said Wednesday she was not aware that power-of-attorney privileges expired when someone died, which prompted Munger’s admonition and a warning that any sort of probation violation would result in him handing down prison time.
“I don’t have any hesitation sending someone of your age and physical condition to prison,” Munger said. “I’ve done it before.”
The attempted forgery plea is the latest chapter in a long criminal history for Hagen, who according to court records has been charged with murder three times and has served nearly 12 years in prison for setting fires in Ajo and Minnesota.
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