Three Merced County Superior Court clerks accused of illegally copying confidential police reports pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of petty theft.
The three will each have to do 20 hours of community service in exchange for the pleas they entered Wednesday, said Barton Bowers, state deputy attorney general.
"It's our feeling that clerks hold a position of trust in the judicial system," he explained, "and by taking unredacted police reports and distributing them, they violated the trust."
The group -- Tamara Ashlock, 48, Annie Huff, 38, and Susan Moorehead, 47, -- has shown remorse, Bowers said, and received administrative punishment based on their conduct. They were facing up to six months in jail, if convicted.
"It looks like they learned a valuable lesson," Bowers said.
C. Logan McKechnie, Huff's attorney, declined to comment on the settlement, though he said the three women took "substantial reductions in pay" at work. All three are still employed, he said.
The other attorneys did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The three were arrested in January 2007 after Merced County Sheriff's deputies learned they had copied a report from a felony assault investigation that centered on Moorehead's son.
During one investigative interview, a witness knew details found only in the report.
Moorehead received a copy of a report with victims' names and witnesses' phone numbers and addresses with the help of Ashlock and Huff, according to investigators.
She wanted a copy of the report to find out why her son had been arrested since witnesses said they saw him at a different party during the assault, her attorney said during a past hearing.
The 23-page report, filed at the courthouse, was public information and could be released. However, the sensitive information should have been blacked out.
Also, the court charges 10 cents a page, and the clerks didn't pay for the copies. They were charged with petty theft of something worth less than $50.
Moorehead's son was accused of stabbing Tyson Pickard, the younger brother of a local U.S. Marine who had been killed a month earlier in Iraq.
The charges against her son were later dropped by the Merced County District Attorney's Office.
Pickard was one of three stabbed during a New Year's Eve party in McSwain, a neighborhood between Atwater and Merced. According to police, five gang members crashed the 100-person party, and a fight started when they were told to leave.
The case, prosecuted by state Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.'s office to avoid a conflict of interest with the Merced County district attorney, was set to go to trial sometime this year.
Another hearing is scheduled June 2, and Bowers said the clerks can report that they've fulfilled their community service obligations. Then the charges will officially be dismissed.
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