MEDINA, Ohio — Almost everyone who has written to a judge about Audrey Iacona wants him to free the former cheerleader, who has spent 20 months in jail for causing the death of her baby.

        The Ohio Supreme Court on Aug. 29 ruled that Ms. Iacona was properly convicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and abuse of a corpse for the death of her son when she was a high school senior. She is serving an eight-year sentence.

        The court also upheld a lower court's ruling that ordered that Audrey Iacona be re-sentenced.

        Since the Ohio Supreme Court rulings, the judge in her case has received more than 70 letters. Some say Ms. Iacona, now 21, has been treated more harshly than girls who have committed similar crimes in neighboring Cuyahoga County.
       

Not an opinion poll
               Judge James L. Kimbler of Medina County Common Pleas, who is to decide Nov. 30 if he will reimpose an eight-year prison sentence, said he doesn't read the letters, but his staff keeps them.

        “I believe these are very sincere, well-intentioned people, but this is not a public-opinion poll,” he said. “I don't sentence people based on the amount of letters I get one way or another.”

        Not all the letter writers are sympathetic.

        “I truly believe that Audrey deserves the maximum punishment for what she has done,” wrote Bryan Clink, the biological father of the baby boy. “I would have done anything for my child to have just one chance at life. She did have that chance and she selfishly took it from him.”
       

Immaturity cited
               John Goodchild of Cleveland reminded Judge Kimbler to speak for the baby.

        “That little boy is gone forever,” he wrote. “He deserves justice.”

        Medina County Prosecutor Dean Holman, who had sought an eight-year prison term for Ms. Iacona in 1998, said his opinion of the case hasn't changed. He said he will seek prison time.

        But many writers said prison would do more harm than good, arguing that Ms. Iacona was a confused and immature teen-ager rather than a malicious monster who killed her baby.

        Ms. Iacona, who was a 17-year-old high school junior at the time, had concealed her pregnancy from her parents. Her family has maintained the baby boy died moments after birth from a viral infection.
       

Audrey's sympathizers
               Some letter writers feared their children could make similar mistakes.

        “She is the same age as my oldest son,” wrote Mary Wise, of Bay Village, a social worker appealing for leniency. “He has made some poor choices. Sometimes I ask, 'God, when will this child learn?'”

        Judge Kimbler also received a letter from Debora K. Weihrauch, a Medina woman who spent about seven months in the county jail with Ms. Iacona for illegally obtaining prescription drugs.

        “Although it was the worst 6 1/2 months of my life... it did bring about one of the most dearest blessings of my life and that would be Audrey,” she wrote. “I know it might sound crazy but Audrey is like a big sister to me, and I'm 40. She has helped me stay focused on what's important in life.”

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