When the prosecutor hit play, and the judge watched Priscilla strike herself while Rodney stood by in silence, the courtroom went deathly quiet. The defense attorney stopped speaking mid-sentence.

There’s no room for debate when your malice is broadcast on a seventy-inch screen.

The jury took under three hours to return guilty on all counts.

Sentencing followed a week later. Priscilla stood at the mahogany bench, her defiance replaced by hollow realization, and received up to eighteen years in a maximum-security state penitentiary for felony financial exploitation of an elder, aggravated forgery, and physical abuse.

The judge was merciless in his delivery, citing the predatory, premeditated nature of the assault and her calculated attempt to strip a vulnerable man of his autonomy and his dignity.

Rodney, who had spent the trial staring at the floor to avoid my eyes, got eight years. The court held him accountable as an accessory, citing his role in the laundering and his failure to protect a vulnerable dependent.