| Mistrial declared in hush-money case
Gazette found in jury room contained story about trial
By Toby Coleman Staff Writer
The Charleston Gazette
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SPENCER â The trial of the Elkview woman accused of taking hush money from the man having sex with her 12-year-old daughter ended in a mistrial Wednesday.
Circuit Judge Thomas Evans ended Marsha Kay Nichols' extortion trial after learning that one of the jurors brought a copy of The Charleston Gazette, containing a story about the trial, to the jury room before testimony began Wednesday morning.
Under court rules, jurors are supposed to base their decisions entirely on what they hear and see during trial.
"Even if you all told me that you didn't read the article, there's still an appearance of impropriety," Evans told jurors.
Nichols, 32, will now have to wait until her retrial, scheduled for September, to tell her side of the story. She faces allegations that she accepted cash payments from her ex-boyfriend, Bruce Stover, to keep silent about his sexual relationship with her preteen daughter in 2003.
Nichols' lawyer, Mike Del Giudice, says Stover cooked up the charges to get back at her for dumping him years ago. Nichols and her family say authorities believe Stover because he has a long relationship with the investigating officer in the case, State Police Sgt. John Elmore.
On Wednesday, Roane County prosecutor Mark Sergent defended Elmore's investigation, including his decision to delay charging Stover with sex crimes until March 2004 â two months after Stover told State Police that he had sex with Nichols' daughter, according to court records.
"[Elmore] is an experienced officer," Sergent said. "Apparently there was not a safety issue."
Indeed, Stover claims that he and Nichols' daughter were in love.
"It was all consensual," he told State Police in January 2004, according to an interview transcript. "I never did anything until she said that she wanted me to do it."
Both Stover and the girl say they began their relationship in secret in 2003. He was 42. She was 12.
Eventually, Nichols found out and had her uncle tell Stover to stay away from her daughter, according to Stover.
Despite the warning, Stover kept on having sex with the girl. It stopped only after the girl's stepmother and father learned of the relationship in December 2003.
At the time, Nichols indicated that she did not know that her daughter was still involved with Stover, according to Melissa Jarvis, the girl's stepmother.
"[Nichols] thought they had taken care of it," Jarvis said.
Stover told State Police a different story. He said that after he talked with Nichols' uncle, Nichols called him and demanded $1,000 in hush money.
After he began paying her in cash installments of between $75 and $200, she did not keep him from seeing her daughter, he told police. A couple of times, he said, she watched silently as he kissed and hugged her daughter. On another occasion, he said, Nichols retreated to her bedroom while he had sex with her daughter in her home.
Since then, Stover has pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree sexual assault and been sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Nichols also tried to cut a deal to end her case. Earlier this year, she agreed to plead guilty to attempted extortion, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. But Evans refused to approve the deal.
If convicted of all three felony extortion counts, Nichols could end up with a three- to 15-year prison sentence.
To contact staff writer Toby Coleman, use e-mail or call 348-5156.
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