Edinburg Man’s Plea Deal Includes Vasectomy

An Edinburg man will undergo a vasectomy as part of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to child endangerment, hit and run driving and driving on a suspended license.

Jessie Lee Herald, 27, was also sentenced to a total of one year and eight months in prison and three years supervised probation and two years unsupervised probation.

Jessie Lee Herald

Assistant commonwealth’s attorney Ilona L. White offered the agreement on June 4, the day of a scheduled plea hearing, and Herald accepted. White and Charles Ramsey, Herald’s attorney, agreed that the vasectomy provision is something rarely seen as part of a sentencing.

“Absolutely, it’s unusual,” Ramsey said in an interview Thursday. “I’ve never been part of one like that before.”

The agreement calls for Herald to undergo the vasectomy within a year of his release from prison. The agreement also requires that Herald not reverse the vasectomy while he is on probation.

{snip}

White said her motivation in offering the vasectomy option to Herald stemmed from concerns raised at sentencing hearings in earlier cases about how many children have been traced to him from different women.

“It was primarily due to the fact he had seven or eight children, all by different women, and we felt it might be in the commonwealth’s interest for that to be part of the plea agreement,” White said of the vasectomy provision.

{snip}

Herald’s sentencing on child endangerment and the related offenses stem from a vehicle crash on Dec. 23. Authorities accused him of leaving the scene after his 2007 Toyota ran off Stony Creek Road, hit an embankment and rolled over.

Herald fled with the 3-year-old boy who had been traveling with him, state police said.

{snip}