The continuing saga of Lane Myers rolled back into focus on Saturday as Mark “The Reluctant Prophet” Kelly released a new audio interview with Myers from the Pima County Adult Correctional Facility in which Myers questioned the need for a victim impact statement to play a role in determining his potential punishment from taking a plea deal.
In the 15-minute interview, Myers again threw doubt on his acceptance of the plea deal as he called the victim of the crimes he is pleading guilty to “the alleged victim” and cast doubt on his actual acceptance of his guilt of the crimes of felony stalking and harassment.
Myers started the call by telling Kelly that he received notice from his advisory attorney, Mark Resnick, that prosecutor Rachel Stiles filed a 40-page victim impact report, with 10 pages written as a statement from the victim of his crimes.
The jailed YouTuber seemed furious as he claimed that the victim of his crimes included demands in her letter that included a lifetime no contact order between Myers and Kelly, the forced deletion of his YouTube channel, and all of the revenue from his GiveSendGo account being redirected to his victim or, alternatively, the ACLU.
As of Sunday, Myers’ GiveSendGo campaign stood at a total of $8,897.00 collected over the past year, with $6,248.00 donated this year and $1,296.00 donated for June. No donations were noted for Sunday, with the entire crowd sourcing market putting up goose eggs for the second-straight day as no donations were recoded for any of the campaigns we follow.
Myers also claimed that his victim’s husband wrote a letter to the court, allegedly along with all of the judges from the Pima County City Court writing anonymous letters, with the exception of Judge Kevin Franklin, as they all allegedly said that they lived in fear of Lane Myers and repercussions of their speaking out against him.
Kelly led Myers in a discussion of how the victim impact statements and letters of support of his victim were all written by “government employees” except the letter from his victim’s mother. He also claimed that prosecutor Rachel Stiles was “playing dirty” by filing the victim impact statement at “the last moment” so he wouldn’t have an opportunity to respond to it.
Myers apparently immediately filed a new motion with the court to strike any sentencing recommendations from his victim or those that wrote letters as part of victim impact report.
The mountain biking enthusiast wrote: “victim impact statements are not, and never were meant to be a place for the victims to make either sentencing recommendations, or to recommend probation conditions. Victim impact statements can include information about the victim’s personal characteristics and the impact of the crime on the victim’s family. However, these statements may not include opinions or recommendations about the appropriate sentence. See, Stote v. Montoya,258 Ariz. 128 (2024); State v. Rose,231 Ariz. 500 (2013). Further, the court must screen the impact evidence for potential unfair prejudice, ensuring the fair administration of justice. See, Montoya, Id.
In the instant case, the victim devotes a great deal of her letter to the legally-forbidden practice of providing a sentencing recommendation. Defendant hereby requests that the court strike those recommendations and make no findings based thereon. The defendant believes it to be the very height of hypocrisy, that as he is being sentenced for having run afoul of Arizona statutes for attempting to expose the failure of state actors to follow statutes, that they would then violate additional statutes and caselaw in the service of his punishment. These recommendations must be given no quarter.”
Myers also challenged the constitutionality of probation conditions made as suggestions by the victim of his crimes. In this passage, Myers reverts to calling his victim “the alleged victim” and does not specify what exactly the victim of his crimes suggested in her letter to the court that he was upset about other than any action that would limit his first amendment rights during his probation.
Strangely, letters of support for Myers were also released by the court at the same time as his motion to essentially quash the victim impact statement. Contrary to claims by Myers that they include over 200 letters of support for him, only a handful of letters from his family members, girlfriend and die-hard supporters were in the pdf file.
Of the included letters, nearly every letter included suggestions for the court not to impose conditions on Myers during his probation and to give him probation instead of actual jail time. Myers did not include the suggestion to limit these letters in his motion to quash the victim impact letters in regards to his sentencing.
Myers is scheduled to be sentenced for two felony crimes on Tuesday. We will provide full audio coverage along with a debrief with our local reporters later that night.
