Bizarre saga of fake kidnapping of Quinn Hanna Gray reaches quiet end in court
St. Augustine Record
ST. AUGUSTINE - The saga of Quinn Hanna Gray, which started in a Jacksonville motel room 17 months ago and wound up titillating a nationwide audience, ended Friday afternoon not with a bang but something like a whimper in a nearly deserted St. Johns County courtroom.
There were no throngs of spectators, reporters and photographers around as Gray slipped into the courtroom about 4:30 with her attorney, Mark Miller, and pleaded no contest to a charge of threats or extortion.
The defendant, whose life reportedly unraveled because of alcohol abuse, was ordered Friday not to have a single drink while she serves seven years of probation.
Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger put her on notice that a violation could mean prison.
Pacing back and forth in the spectator section of the courtroom, waiting for the defendant to appear, was her ex-husband, Reid Allen Gray, the chief operating officer of Advanced Homecare.
The doors swung open. He quickly glanced at her, then looked away.
His ex-wife, who now goes by her maiden name, Hanna, seemed to make a point of not looking at him.
Hanna, now 38, and her co-defendant, Jasmin Osmanovic, 27, have admitted to faking her kidnapping over the 2009 Labor Day weekend, spending their time in a Jacksonville motel and trying to extort $50,000 from Reid Gray.
A note from the "kidnappers" claimed Reid Gray almost got his wife killed twice.
Two notes to Gray said a sharpshooter could easily kill him.
Osmanovic, a mechanic and auto shop owner from Jacksonville, was arrested Sept. 14. Hanna was arrested two days later.
He remained in jail on $100,000 bail until he pleaded guilty Jan. 15 to extortion. The agreed-upon sentencing range is from five to 10 years of probation. Berger is now scheduled to sentence him on March 14.
After she met the conditions of a $200,000 bail, Hanna was taken to a Georgia mental health facility, which later released her.
Reid Gray filed for divorce in April, saying the marriage was irretrievably broken. He asked to have primary responsibility for caring for the couple's two young daughters.
The Grays were married in October 2000.
Berger imposed several special conditions as she went through the terms of Hanna's probation during the 30-minute hearing.
The defendant will have to get substance abuse and mental health evaluations. She will have to continue receiving care from a doctor whom she is now seeing.
She is to have no contact with Osmanovic and no violent contact with her ex-husband or his family.
She was ordered to pay $2,500 toward the $5,000 cost of prosecution and $43,000 toward the $86,000 cost of investigation by the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.
Berger ordered Hanna to make payments of at least $1,000 a month.
Following the recommendation by assistant state attorneys Jason Lewis and Jenny Dunton, Berger withheld an adjudication of guilt.
That, the judge said, should help Hanna get her registered nurse license, if that is how she plans to make restitution.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bizarre saga of fake kidnapping of Quinn Hanna Gray reaches quiet end in court
