Savannah lawyer Michael Wetzel stuck by his son, even when Jeremy Wetzel went to prison for sending photos of his genitals to a 15-year-old girl at the high school where he worked.
The elder Wetzel took it upon himself to handle his son's appeals over several years and, last week, he won a Georgia Supreme Court ruling that overturned his son’s felony conviction. The state high court also upheld Wetzel’s misdemeanor conviction for electronically furnishing obscene material to a minor.
"What Jeremy finally got convicted of is exactly what he did," said Athens lawyer Colin Moriarty, who represented the younger Wetzel at trial. "We would have had him plead guilty to the misdemeanor almost from the beginning."
When asked about Michael Wetzel’s commitment to his son, Moriarty said, “It’s a father’s love. If there were more fathers like Michael, this world would be a better place."
As for the younger Wetzel’s offense, Moriarty said, "It's been awful all the way around. It's been very difficult on Jeremy's family, on everyone involved. There's no getting around the fact that Jeremy made a terrible decision."
Moriarty added that the Supreme Court's ruling means that Wetzel will eventually be able to
petition to be removed from the state’s sex offender registry.
Wetzel’s father did not return a phone call and email seeking comment. After he argued his son's appeal before the state high court in September, Wetzel said he practices insurance law, not criminal defense.
Clarke County District Attorney Ken Mauldin said he believed his office brought the proper charges against Jeremy Wetzel.
"Certainly we're disappointed but we respect the opinion of the court," he said. "We do take some solace that they upheld the misdemeanor conviction. ... His conduct was absolutely reprehensible, there's no question about that."
In the fall of 2011, Jeremy Wetzel worked as a paraprofessional in a special-needs classroom at Oconee High School. He became acquainted with a 15-year-old female student who worked in a student club that assisted special ed students.
On Nov. 15, 2011, Wetzel, then 24, began exchanging casual messages with the student, identified in court records as S.B.J. The following evening, their exchanges became increasingly sexual in nature.
At one point, Wetzel sent two emails with photos of his genitals to S.B.J. He followed up a few days later by sending her more photos, as well as a text that asked, “What do I get in return?”
The student testified at trial that she then sent two photos of herself topless to Wetzel. Their communications continued for a few more days but ended when Wetzel indicated he wanted to resume a relationship with a former girlfriend.
On Dec. 6, 2011, S.B.J. showed two of her friends the photos Wetzel sent to her. The next day, her friends told a teacher what had happened. School officials promptly fired Wetzel and called the police, who arrested Wetzel later that day.
Wetzel was charged with two felonies – computer pornography and child molestation – and one misdemeanor count of electronically furnishing obscene material to minors. At trial, he was acquitted of the child molestation charge, convicted of the two other counts and sentenced to eight years, with the first two years to be served in prison and the rest on probation. He has since been released from prison.
Justice David Nahmias, writing for a unanimous court, called Wetzel's conduct "highly inappropriate" and "reprehensible."
But Nahmias noted that the felony charge required a finding by the jury that Wetzel used an electronic device to seduce S.B.J. "to engage in any conduct that by its nature is an unlawful sexual offense against a child."
This meant the jury had to find that Wetzel, by his actions, had violated another specific criminal law. Yet in his arguments, the Clarke County prosecutor told the jurors that if they, as "the voice of the community," believed Wetzel's conduct was offensive, then he had committed an "unlawful sexual offense."
"But it is bedrock principle of Georgia law that only the Legislature can prescribe what conduct will be deemed criminal, and it is also fundamental that a person may be found guilty only of crimes that were defined before he committed the allegedly illegal acts," the opinion said.
Because the prosecution "misled" the jury on that point and because the trial judge failed to correct that information when charging the jury on the law before jurors began their deliberations, the felony conviction must be reversed, Nahmias wrote.
About the Author
