![Marshall Tomas in court with his attorney, Matthew Maguire. (© FlaglerLive via zoom)](https://i0.wp.com/flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/marshall-thomas.png?resize=1000%2C750&ssl=1)
Marshall Thomas, the former Matanzas High School student accused of stealing his father’s firearms to face down other teens at Holland Park and of sexually assaulting a fellow-student during class, has been committed to a high-risk juvenile sex-offender program until his 21st birthday, following which he will be on probation for the balance of five years. Thomas turns 18 on Wednesday.
Thomas had been charged as an adult. The resolution of the two cases one dating back two years, the other a year and a half, was part of a plea agreement that also reduced the molestation charge to child abuse, diminishing Thomas’s exposure to a third degree felony instead of a second degree felony, or a maximum penalty of f15 years in prison to five. He pleaded no contest to the child abuse charge and to three grand theft charges, each a third degree felony.
He has also been ordered to repay restitution of $11,762, though the repayment may be limited to $10,000. He or his parents will also be required to pay $5 a day for his detention absent significant hardship.
After his arrest, Thomas had left Palm Coast and resettled in Wisconsin, where he was attending school–until a parent there brought his recent past to the attention of local school authorities. He was subsequently homeschooled, and re-arrested on charges that he was circulating porn to students, of underage subjects, at a school he was not attending. He was held at a jail in Wisconsin before his return to face the charges in Flagler County, and the plea agreement last July before Circuit Court Judge Terence Perkins.
Thomas faced up to 30 years in prison on the three grand theft charge and the original sexual assault charge, but that was reduced to a maximum of 20 years in the plea agreement. He has been court-ordered to have no contact with his victim. Upon the completion of the residential program, he will have to serve the rest of his five years of probation, when he will have to abide to a curfew, among other restrictions on his freedoms.
Thomas’s health has not been good: when he was transported from Wisconsin to a juvenile jail in Volusia County a few months ago, he began coughing up blood, and continued to do so at the Volusia jail, according to court papers. He had previously been treated at a children’s hospital. His health may have played a role in mitigating the severity of the penalty he faced.
The joke of equal justice says
Weird there was a younger black kid with mental health issues that committed assult at same school and got like 15 years probation and 5 years in a federal prison as an adult. Guess this kids parents had more money.