Mr. Shutts, a Vietnam veteran, was charged with attempting to travel to Costa Rica to engage in sex with a minor, a charge with a mandatory ten-year prison sentence.
Days before trial, Mr. Seitles convinced the government to waive the minimum mandatory sentence. The government instead offered Mr. Shutts a lesser charge with a federal guideline imprisonment range of 46 to 57 months.
At sentencing, Mr. Seitles argued against prison time for Mr. Shutts. Mr. Seitles, through the testimony of several character witnesses and a psychiatrist, presented evidence that Mr. Shutts was a hard-working lumberer who was naive and easily manipulated, had no characteristics of a person interested in minors, had suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom, and who had been in the middle of a horrible divorce at the time of his arrest.
The Judge sentenced Mr. Shutts to five years probation.
