The briefs, reports and evaluations have all been filed, the character references and victim impact statements have been received now the burden of deciding just how many years Toni Fratto will serve in prison rest on shoulders of District Judge Dan Papez of White Pine County.
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Fratto pled guilty to second degree murder of 16 year old Micaela Costanzo this January and faces a minimum 10 years to life in prison plus a sentence enhancement of at least one year for the use of a deadly weapon. A strict by the book jurist Papez, is also one of the most highly respected judges in the state his ruling have been rarely if ever over turned by the State Supreme Court and he is praised by both defense attorneys and prosecutors for his fairness and impartiality.
A veteran on the bench for almost two decades Papez was the former White Pine County District Attorney and a private attorney in his native Ely.
“Anyone hoping for an extremely light sentence or for that matter an extremely harsh one will be disappointed.” said an attorney who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Judge Papez is an extremely fair and honest man.”
Papez inherited the case, which has drawn national and international interest, after the untimely death of Elko District Judge Andrew Puccinelli last summer of prostate cancer.
Every judge imposing sentence relies on the report from the state’s parole and probation on the soon to be inmate’s chances of rehabilitation, predisposition for violence and likelihood of returning to prison. A judge may also factor in other psychological evaluations submitted.
Fratto’s case is unique on two counts. According to sources who read the report there is nothing in Fratto’s past that would have been a red flag or even a caution that the girl who was a regular on the preteen Utah beauty pageant circuit would play a lead role in the most horrific murder in Wendover history.
With an IQ measured as low normal or ‘dull’, Fratto is said to have an extremely malleable personality, a follower and never a leader.
“There is really nothing in there that would surprise anyone who knew the girl,” said a source who read the report. “”It doesn’t answer any questions. In fact it even raises some. Anyone looking for some deep dark secret is going to be disappointed. It is just not there. She was raised in a good home in a large loving religious family. There is no evidence of child abuse or trauma. Nothing except for the fact that she does what she is told.”
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That submissiveness was raised by her defenders early on well before she pled guilty. Her defense team of john springgate and David Lockie suggested that her confession was first of all not true and coerced out of her by the father of her accomplice Kody Patten and that Fratto may have not even been at the murder site until long after Micaela was killed.
However any supposition that Fratto was confessing to a murder she did not commit to save her boyfriend from a death sentence evaporated this January when Fratto took the plea deal.
“I think she felt remorse and wanted to take her punishment,” Lockie said shortly after the deal was announced.
Fratto’s acceptance of the DA’s offer came within days Patten first accepted and then rejected an offer that would have had him pleading guilty to first degree murder but with the death penalty taken off the table.
The essential element of Patten’s now rejected offer was his testimony against Fratto as is Fratto’s promise to testify against patten in his upcoming trial this July.
The girl’s promise to testify against her former fiancé could also be a major factor in just how much time she will be sentenced to.
“There is testifying and there is testifying,” said one attorney. “If she feels betrayed by an overly harsh sentence she might not be as helpful as the prosecution would have liked on the witness stand.”
But apart from the plea bargain and the evaluations and everything else surrounding the case perhaps the biggest factor in fratto’s sentence will be her crime.
The now 19 year old woman admitted to hitting her victim with a shovel and then holding her down as Patten cut her throat. Fratto also explained in her plea agreement that Patten had sent her a text message after he abducted Micaela from West Wendover High School and that the girl was alive and in the SUV Patten used to pick up Fratto from a meeting of the Wendover Recreation District two hours after the kidnapping.
Patten, Fratto and their victim may have even passed by the first searchers for Micaela that were then mobilizing as they drove out to the gravel pit five miles out of town. The two even showed up the next day at West Wendover High to join in the search for Costanzo.
And for six weeks after the killing while her lover was considered the only killer in the vicious murder fratto stayed quiet and never raised any suspicion the she was also involved.
“That kind of cool is pretty hard to imagine,” said one detective who worked on the case. “The shrinks can call her anything they want but she had to have ice water in her veins.”
Fratto will be sentenced April 16th.
