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Extortion suspect, accuser to testify
Defense hopes to show revenge behind hush-money allegations
By Toby Coleman, Staff Writer
The Charleston Gazette
SPENCER â Two years ago, Marsha Kay Nichols found out that her 42-year-old ex-boyfriend was having sex with her 12-year-old daughter.
Now, a Roane County jury is trying to figure out what she did next.
At the opening of Nichols' extortion trial Tuesday, Roane County prosecutor Mark Sergent said she took cash payments from her ex-boyfriend to keep quiet.
Nichols' lawyer, Mike Del Giudice, told jurors that his client was being set up by her vengeful ex-boyfriend.
"Bruce Stover and Marsha Nichols used to date," Del Giudice said after the trial adjourned for the evening Tuesday. "She broke up with him and he threatened to get even with her for doing that. He's done far more than get even."
Today, jurors are expected to get a chance to weigh the stories for themselves when Stover and Nichols testify.
Their tale began unraveling in December 2003, after the girl's stepmother, Melissa Jarvis, said she found a note from Stover in the girl's dresser.
Jarvis said she and her husband sat down with the girl and Nichols and quickly learned that the girl was having sex with Stover.
It was then, Jarvis said, that Nichols revealed that she knew her pre-teen daughter had had sex with Stover. But, Jarvis added, Nichols later said she thought it was a one-time occurrence that had been "taken care of."
At first, Nichols was reluctant to report the girl's relationship with Stover to the police, Jarvis said.
In January 2004, though, she called State Police Sgt. John Elmore to report Stovers' relationship with her daughter.
When Elmore confronted him, Stover acknowledged having sex with Nichols' daughter. "She loved me and I loved her," Stover said in January 2004, according to a police transcript.
Stover eventually pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to 90 days in prison. But first, he told police that Nichols had long known about his sexual relationship with her daughter, but had kept quiet for months because he was giving her payments of $100 or so to keep quiet.
Stover told police that he had sex with Nichols' daughter while she was home and had hugged and kissed the girl in front of Nichols when Nichols came to his house to pick up hush payments.
Prosecutors used Stover's claims to charge Nichols with three counts of felony extortion, which could land her in jail for 15 years.
Circuit Judge Thomas Evans refused to let Nichols enter into a plea deal under which she would have been convicted of attempted extortion, a misdemeanor punishable by no more than a year in jail.
Nichols arrived in court Tuesday in a purple shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots.
She remained expressionless as witnesses testified.
Today, she is expected to take the stand in an effort to convince jurors that she is a victim of a spurned lover's revenge attempt.
One of her uncles, Dennis Blackshire, backed up her claims Tuesday.
A few months after Nichols broke up with Stover, Stover told Blackshire he would "get even with her one way or another," Blackshire said Tuesday.
"I said, 'How are you going to do that?'" Blackshire said. "And [Stover] said, 'Well, I will screw her daughter.'"
www.wvgazette.com
To contact staff writer Toby Coleman, use e-mail or call 348-5156.
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