My Stolen Identity (Complete)

Chapter 28 - First Day of Court

**** Monday ****

On the first day of court me and Knox took our seats towards the front, right behind the desk where the prosecuting attorney sits. I grabbed onto Knox's hand, holding it tight because I had never been in a court room before and it was intimidating. Shortly after we got there I saw David and Keisha come in and they took a seat right behind us.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Keisha whispered.

"Nervous," I whispered back, watching as some of Peggy's other victims were coming in too. Keisha gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and I smiled at her. "I'm glad you came." We hadn't seen too much of each other lately because she had been with David so much and I had been busy with knox.

Pretty soon the courtroom was full and the jury took their seats and then a side door opened and the Judge came in wearing a long black robe, taking his seat at the front of the room on an elevated wooden platform. He looked about sixty years old and he had hair so grey it was almost white and there were creases in his forehead and crow's feet around his eyes, probably from years of working a highly stressful job. He had a warm, friendly smile though, like he hadn't let the stress get him down.

The deputies escorted Peggy into the room and I noticed she was allowed to wear her regular clothes, not an orange jumpsuit like I had pictured in my mind and she also wasn't wearing restraints of any kind.

I leaned over and whispered to Knox. "Why isn't she handcuffed?"

"Because she's not being tried for a violent crime," he whispered back.

"Ahhh, okay," I nodded.

After Peggy sat down, she turned around and scanned the crowd and then her eyes locked onto me. Her expression was very blank and cold, with no hint of a smile and it gave me a chill up my spine. That look reminded me of a villain from a scary movie and I wondered what she was thinking. She stared long enough to make me start to feel uncomfortable and I fidgeted in my seat before Peggy's lawyer said something to her and she finally turned around.

The judge banged his gavel on a block to get the room's attention.

"Prosecution, please come forward and make your opening statement," the judge said.

The prosecuting attorney turned around and gave a smile and head nod to Knox before he stood up and walked to the front center of the room. He was a tall, good looking, clean-cut man in his mid twenties wearing a nice suit.

"We are here today to get justice for ten men who thought they had found the love of their life online. They dated her for months, talking and texting on the phone day and night. They opened themselves up to her and told her things they had never told anyone else. They had what felt like a very real relationship with her, many of them saying she became their best friend and the love of their life. One moved to this country for her so they could start their lives together. He gave her a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a down payment on what he thought was going to be their first home together and paid for the extravagant wedding she insisted on having in Las Vegas. He was actually waiting for her at the altar and when she didn't show up, that's how he figured out it had all been a scam. She not only broke his heart, she destroyed his life and his relationship with his family for money. Another cleared out his entire retirement account, giving her every penny he had because she lied and said she needed the money for a heart transplant. He was willing to give everything he had to save the life of the woman he loved, the woman that said she would marry him. After he gave her the money she stopped answering his calls and texts, leaving him devastated because he thought she might have died. Another gave her over three hundred thousand dollars so her nephew could have life-saving cancer treatments, a nephew that never even existed."