Daycare worker accused of assault gets bail after almost a year

A Centre County woman fighting a retrial on assault charges was granted bail Tuesday after initially being denied almost a year ago.

Jalene McClure, 43, was a daycare provider accused of an assault on a 5-month-old child in 2010. She has been opposing an ordered retrial since the sentencing for a 2014 conviction that was overturned in 2016 amid an alleged texting scandal in the county.

An attempt to secure bail for McClure was denied in March 2017 by Clinton County Senior Judge J. Michael Williamson. McClure appeared before Williamson again with her new attorney, John Abom.

McClure was previously represented by Bernie Cantorna, who withdrew himself as counsel at the beginning of December. Cantorna now serves as the Centre County district attorney, and prosecution has been turned over to the state Attorney General’s Office.

Williamson referred to the case’s “tortuous procedural history,” pointing to it as a possible miscarriage of justice and noting that the case itself is still being held back pending an appeal by former Centre County Judge Bradley Lunsford.

Deputy Attorney General Rebecca Franz said the case only came to the AG’s office last week, saying the office has had no part in any of the appeals through either the state Superior Court or Supreme Court. She also noted that all prior intervening appeals had been handled through the county DA’s office.

Franz argued that the underlying charges in the pending retrial were “significant” enough to refuse bail, noting that there had been issues the last time McClure had been released on bail after the conviction had been overturned.

The CDT previously reported that McClure had been found babysitting again in November 2016, a violation of an order that she was not to supervise any children apart from her own.

Franz requested that if Williamson were to grant bail, that it be a “significant amount” with conditions.

Williamson said he worried that if he denied bail and the retrial were to be dismissed, then McClure would have been sitting in jail for about two years for no reason.

Abom argued that his client has many familial ties with Centre County and would be living in the county if on bail.

Williamson granted McClure $100,000 unsecured bail, which had been the bail initially set following the overturn in 2016.

Conditions of bail include that she will remain under house arrest, is restricted to travel within Centre County unless granted permission by the parole office and is prohibited from being alone with children other than her own without another adult present.

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Daycare worker accused of assault gets bail after almost a year."