By MATTHEW NESTEL and ANDY GELLER
June 17, 2008
She's trading jail for a shrink's couch.
Jennifer Jones, half of a "Thelma and Louise" open-house robbery team, has agreed to plead guilty to grand larceny charges and spend a year seeing a therapist in lieu of going to the slammer.
Jones, 33, will enter her plea on July 1, her lawyer and prosecutors said at a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday.
If she successfully completes the year of therapy, the charges against her will be dismissed.
Had the case gone to trial, she could have ended up spending seven years in the Big House.
Jones and pal Jessica Joyner, 39, were arrested last Nov. 24 and charged with swiping fancy furs, designer handbags, jewelry and cash while attending open houses of apartments for sale on the Upper East and Upper West sides and in New Jersey's Bergen County.
One would distract the real-estate agent while the other allegedly made off with the goodies.
Cops said the women admitted being light-fingered ladies.
But Jones' lawyer, Jeremy Saland, said, "It's not really a black-and-white case. There's more that the penal law suggests.
"We provided very compelling reasons, and we worked tirelessly so the prosecution could see that this is not a black-and-white case."
Saland said the so-called Uptown Girls plan full restitution.
"We've been working with law enforcement to make our clients pay back the whole thing," he said.
Joyner, who wore black and clutched a large red purse, is working on a similar plea deal and hopes to have one in place in a month, said her lawyer, Marc Agnifilo.
"We've been in the process of coordinating efforts with Bergen County and New York prosecutors so we can work out a decision," he said.
Both Jones and Joyner have prior drug-possession convictions.
