ANDREATTA

Andreatta: Plea warps reality of thefts at vets' graves

David Andreatta
Columnist
Joseph Kuzma, 35, admitted to stealing 454 American Legion bronze flag holders like this and selling most of them for scrap.

This column will attempt to make sense of a plea deal for a Genesee County man who desecrated hundreds of military veterans' graves.

It might not succeed, mind you, that's why this is just an attempt. Attempting something and pulling it off are entirely different, as you will see.

The plea was copped by Joseph Kuzma, 35, who admitted he stole 454 bronze flag holders from veterans' graves in the towns of Bergen and Byron last fall and sold most of them for scrap.

Kuzma faced two counts of third-degree grand larceny, one for the 192 holders missing in Bergen and the other for the 262 holders missing in Byron.

Anyone with a shred of decency was disgusted by the crime.

But many were equally offended by Kuzma's plea deal, which made headlines this week.

Prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to attempted third-degree grand larceny, as though he had only attempted to steal those flag holders and hadn't actually pulled it off.

"I've been trying to figure that one out myself," said Tom Williamson, the commander of the Sackett Merrill White American Legion Post No. 575 in Bergen, which he said supplied the flag holders at about $36 apiece. "This isn't an 'attempted' thing. They caught him with them."

One of the hundreds of missing holders was at the grave of Williamson's father, a World War II Navy veteran who is buried at Mount Rest Cemetery in Bergen.

Kuzma acknowledged in open court that he was behind the thefts.

The same plea deal that has him only attempting to steal the holders requires him to pay for the holders police couldn't recover. Restitution has been pegged at $14,505, according to the Genesee County District Attorney's Office.

He'll also spend some weekends in jail and five years on probation.

Plea deals are the grease that keep the wheels of the criminal justice system in motion, and they usually involve a defendant pleading guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for the prosecution expediting a conviction. That's why they're called "deals."

But the lesser charge often still describes the crime. A defendant charged with murder who pleads guilty to manslaughter, for instance, is still convicted of killing someone.

The charge to which Kuzma pleaded guilty, though, suggests those flag holders were never stolen.

"This is a good example of how plea bargaining distorts the criminal justice process sometimes," said Darryl Brown, a criminal law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

"The prosecutor and defense know that charging him with an attempted crime is misleading, but they're willing to do it because it arrives at an outcome they think is appropriate," Brown said.

Third-degree grand larceny is a Class D felony punishable by 2 to 7 years in prison. Attempted third-degree grand larceny is a Class E felony punishable by 11/3 to 4 years.

Joseph Kuzma, 35, admitted to stealing 454 American Legion bronze flag holders like this and selling most of them for scrap.

But because neither charge has a mandatory minimum prison term for first-time felony offenders like Kuzma, chances are his punishment would have been only slightly more severe had he been convicted at trial of pulling off the thefts, said Candace McCoy, a plea deal expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

Prosecutor Kevin Finnell said "expediency and expense" were factors in cutting the deal.

"On the court side, we don't bat an eye because we see this sort of thing all the time," Finnell said. "I guess I can understand why people on the outside would say, 'That doesn't make sense to me.' "

"Is it misleading?" Finnell asked. "I guess the way you could think about it is he didn't get away with it."

One could think about it that way.

Or, one could think about it as the prosecution and defense attempting to pull off a deal that makes it look like Kuzma didn't get away with desecrating the graves of hundreds of veterans.

But attempting to do something and pulling it off are entirely different.

DANDREATTA@Gannett.com

Twitter.com/david_andreatta