I am looking for information on how to modify a plea that was initially set up in the state of Florida.
My 7 yr old daughter was assaulted by her 15 yr old half brother a year and a half ago. When we went in to report this, my daughter was video-taped by the children's home society when interviewed about what had happened. In this video-taping shetold about what her half brother had done to her then she said that she saw some videos on her daddy's computer (which her brother had put on the computer) and she also said that (at some time in the way past as she couldn't remember how old she was) she saw her daddy "playing with his bottom" a couple of times. In the end, my husband was arrested, charged with three different counts of sex offenses (two L&L and one on showing pornographic materials to a minor) and nothing was done about my stepson.
We knew nothing about the legal system and was told that no one in the county in which this happened would take this type of case to court for less than 40,000.00. As we did not have this kind of money the attorney we ended up retaining told us that he would only file a plea bargain and try to get my husband the lightest sentence possible. We had no idea the nightmare this was about to turn into!
In the end, the "best" plea my husband was told he could get was a no contest with 364 days in the local county jail, and 10 years probation. For the first five years he was to only have supervised visitation with our daughter at a county visitation center and then the last five years he could visit with her with the approval (by his probation officer) of a family member.
Well, my daughter has been a basket case with this whole "mess" (as she refers to it). She has not seen her father since July of 2005. She has been in therapy for over a year now and is so messed up, it is incredible!! She wants to see her daddy, wants to be with him and wants our family to be together. We have attempted to modify his plea so that she might be able to see him, but nothing has worked. The Probation officers, the State Attorney, nor the judge will allow her to see him at all (no contact whatsoever). According to his probation, she was supposed to be allowed to visit him once a month during his incarceration, and that never happened. The jail refused to allow this.
During this time, she has repeatedly stated that "Daddy didn't do anything! Daddy is not a bad man! Bleep (the name of her half-brother) did it! Bleep lied! Bleep is the one who should be in jail"... etc... She is devastated about this. She cries herself to sleep each night thinking this is all her fault. She hates government officials and does not trust anyone who has taken her daddy away from her. She does not remember the interview nor saying anything remotely close to what they accused him of doing. My husband is not guilty of these charges against him and we feel like we have been "taken to the cleaners" all because we wanted to get our daughter some help from what her half brother did to her.
My reason for giving this information is because we have attempted to modify his plea (had we known what we know now, we would have attempted to find the 40,000.00 somehow and taken this to court to prove his innocence!) by allowing her to have frequent supervised visitation with him and the judge told us this last time that he has "no jurisdiction" over the motion to modify and denied it. We are just trying to get our family unit together and live our own lives again. Is there anything we can do to change this? Is there something that I can submit to the courts (in proxy for my daughter) that would help this little girl heal? Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks for your time.

