The case against Redding resident Sara Sobel, who was arrested in April of 2017 on charges of risk of injury to a minor, is scheduled to be continued on Wednesday, March 28.
At state Superior court in Danbury on Friday, March 9, Danbury attorney Sharon Dornfeld — who was appointed guardian ad litem for the victim — said the case is still being discussed.
As guardian ad litem, Dornfeld represents solutions that would be in the best interests of minors who are involved in court cases.
According to Dornfeld, the Sobel case will have a supervised pretrial with a judge to discuss a possible resolution.
“This would skip the trial,” she said.
Dornfeld said oftentimes, with the resolution, “what happens is they will agree to plead guilty to a certain offense and leave it to the judge to assign the sentence.”
There are a lot of different options with regard to what a plea agreement might look like, according to Dornfeld.
“This judge will put in her opinion as to what, if it came before her, would mostly likely be the sentence,” she said.
Sobel arrest
Sara Sobel and her husband Jon Sobel were arrested because they allegedly hindered an investigation into former Redding resident Stephen Overby’s actions by the state Department of Children and Families, according to arrest warrants on file at Danbury Superior Court.
Sara Sobel is free in lieu of a $150,000 bond.
Overby, who was residing in the Sobels’ home from September 2016 to early 2017, is described as a “close friend” of Sara Sobel, according to warrants issued for the Sobels’ arrests.
Overby, who now lives in Norwalk, pled guilty Feb. 20 to first-degree sexual assault of a person under the age of 13, risk of injury to or impairing the morals of a child, and first-degree possession of child pornography.
He was arrested by Redding police on March 2, 2017. He is free in lieu of a $500,000 bond.
At the time of his arrest, he was residing with the Sobels.
Overby is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday, May 22, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Sharmese Hodge.
Former Board of Education chairperson
Sara Sobel previously served as chairman of the Redding Board of Education. She is also a former member of both the Redding Democratic Town Committee and the Redding Region 9 Board of Education.
The Sobels, who were present in court Friday morning, said they had no comment on the pending case against them.
Judge Susan Reynolds presided over the case on Friday. Also present at court was Vicki Hutchinson, Sara Sobel’s attorney, who also declined to comment on the case.
For a prior article on the Sobels, click here.