Hamlet Smith sentenced to 10 days, then home confinement
Jul. 7—Despite the county's prosecuting attorney pushing for a one-year jail sentence, Hamlet Smith, a well-known local counselor and founder of Life Strategies, was sentenced on Wednesday to serve 10 days at Southern Regional Jail and six months of home confinement, and was fined $500 for a misdemeanor charge of battery.
Raleigh County Circuit Court Judge Darl Poling ruled that Smith's incarceration can be served on the weekends. Smith pleaded guilty to battery in May.
Initially, Smith had been charged with sexual abuse of an adult, a felony, in 2019. In November 2019, he pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Raleigh Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hatfield said that the victim, a journalist in her early 20's, was working her first professional job when she went to Smith's office in October 2019 to interview him for a news story about post-traumatic stress disorder. During the interview, Hatfield said, Smith forced his hand down the young woman's blouse, after she had verbally told him she did not want the contact, and then forced his lips on her forehead when she was exiting the room.
Hatfield, when pressing for the maximum sentence, told Poling that one of his first professional cases out of law school was memorable in a positive way. He was a novice attorney, and a managing partner at his law firm had — finally —given him a case.
He drove more than an hour to get to the rural courthouse. The courtroom was shabby, and the judge was late. The judge was also a farmer, and he had been tied up with farm work before sitting down on the bench.
Hatfield said that the minor case, because it occurred early in his career, has always remained an important case and a positive memory.
He then compared it to the victim's experience with Smith.
When ordering Smith to serve the jail time, Hatfield said, the judge cited Smith's position of trust as a counselor and the victim's young age. Poling also mentioned that the victim had developed post-traumatic stress disorder after the forced contact with Smith, who had agreed to give an interview on PTSD and said that jail time was appropriate for the offense.
PTSD is a disorder in which an individual has a difficult time recovering emotionally from a traumatic event.
Hatfield had asked for Smith to serve the maximum sentence of one year in jail.
