Jennifer Lien In Legal Trouble Again

[Triskelion]

A couple of stories:

Jennifer Ann Lien, 41, was arrested at her home in Harriman on September 3 at around 6:42 p.m. Deputies said Lien had an active warrant in Roane County on two counts of exposing herself to a child under the age of 13.
Neighbor Carey Smith says Lien recently walked by her home and commented on how the children were being cared for while two were crying.
Jennifer Ann Lien (source: Roane County Sheriff’s Office) “Started saying vulgar things. I mean really vulgar things, I told her to mind her own business and keep on walking,” said Smith.

That’s when things got even stranger.


“All of a sudden, here come the shirt up. She started flashing and, ‘Woo hoo,’ and I said, ‘And what respect is that for kids?’ There was none. And then she turned around and dropped her pants,” said Smith.


Parents, worried things might escalate, then called 911.


“I didn’t understand why she was doing it,” said Kayla Clark.


At the time, Lien denied to police that she exposed herself, but officers issued a detainer summons, charging her with indecent exposure.


When Roane County deputies visited Lien’s house, her front door was open. After knocking on the door, she yelled at deputies to come in.


Deputies said Lien was naked on her couch, covered by a blanket. She told the deputies she was expecting them.
Then dispatch told the deputies that Lien had an active warrant from the Harriman City Police Department. When they told her about the warrant, she said they needed to leave her alone, saying she wasn’t going any (expletive) where.


The two deputies repeatedly asked Lien to put on clothes, eventually calling for a female deputy. They said Lien told them she would have all of them shot and killed.


Eventually, deputies said the put Lien in handcuffs, putting a shirt and pants from the jail on her. They said she refused to walk to the patrol car and they had to carry her to the car, before driving to the Roane County Detention Center. Lien’s bond was set at $2,500.


Parents say they are worried and angry about the impression made on their children.


“She pretty much copies everything that I do and I’m pretty sure she would copy somebody else doing that behavior and I don’t want that her to,” said Clark.
Criminal history

Jennifer Ann Lien, 07/03/2012 (Roane County Sheriff’s Office) Lien has a criminal history that includes aggravated assault, resisting arrest, evading arrest and reckless endangerment on April 17 by the Harriman Police Department.


On June 4, 2012 she was also arrested for domestic assault in Roane County.

Source: http://wate.com/2015/09/15/star-tre...ith-exposing-herself-to-children-in-harriman/

And:

The actor who played Kes on “Star Trek: Voyager” is accused of exposing herself in front of children in Harriman.

Jennifer Ann Lien, 41, is charged with indecent exposure in the Aug. 31 incident.





According to the warrant, Harriman Police Officer Julie Parham responded to 529 Sewanee St. about a fight.


“Upon arrival, I spoke with the complainant, Ms. Kayla Clark,” the warrant said. “Ms. Clark stated her neighbor, Ms. Jennifer Lien, had been yelling and cursing her friend, Michelle Smith, due to a crying child.


During her tirade, Ms. Lien began to expose her breast and buttocks on several different occasions. Ms. Clark stated she had three small children out in the yard at the time of Ms. Lien’s exposure.”


Parham, according to the warrant, also spoke with Smith and another neighbor identified as Jonathan Moore.


“Mr. Moore stated he heard Ms. Lien outside yelling and cursing across his yard at the neighbors,” the warrant said. “Ms. Lien then began exposing herself a couple of times. Mr. Moore had three children outside in his yard at the time of Ms. Lien’s exposure.”


Parham said she also spoke with Lien about the allegations.


“In speaking with Ms. Lien about the confrontation, she stated that she was yelling at the neighbors to keep the children quiet,” the warrant said.


“When asked about exposing herself, she denied the accusation.”


Lien is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 7. She was still in custody at the Roane County Jail on Friday.


In addition to playing Kes on “Star Trek: Voyager,” Lien has numerous other acting credits, including “American History X” and “Accidents Don’t Happen.”


According to her IMDb page, she also did voice work in “The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride,” “Men in Black: The Series” and “Battle Force: Andromeda.”


The alleged indecent exposure incident is not the first time Lien has been in trouble in Harriman.


She was charged with evading arrest, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault in an April incident in which she allegedly rammed a Harriman police cruiser.

Source: http://www.roanecounty.com/content/‘star-trek-voyager’-star-charged-exposure


As near as I can tell, the Roane County Jail is a newer facility in Tennessee, though I couldn't locate images of it (and can't get Google Street View in my location).

THE ROANE COUNTY JAIL


Roane County Jail
230 North Third Street
Kingston, TN 37763

Phone: 865-717-4700


By state statue the Sheriff is responsible for operating the jail. In September 2009, Roane County opened is newly built jail. During this time, the sheriff’s office moved approximately 93 male inmates and 27 female inmates to the new jail. The jail has seen its population soar to approximately 260 inmates and at times the female population has been as high as 70. Currently our population is 162 inmates with 33 of the population being female inmates. The number of inmates varies on a daily basis.



The jail is governed by Tennessee Corrections Institute and there are categories covered that must meet the minimum TCI standards, such as: physical plant, administration/ management, personnel, security, discipline, sanitation/maintenance, food services, mail and visiting, prisoner programs and activities, medical services, admission records and release, hygiene, supervision of prisoners, and classification.
The corrections staff has a very extensive regiment to follow on a daily basis just to keep the jail in compliance with TCI minimum standards.

Monday is General Sessions Court. The corrections officers are responsible for taking approximately 70-100 people to court. There are often times that the Grand Jury has met and that would add approximately another 60-70 that would require transport. During the court process, the corrections staff are required to provide security while at the courthouse.

The staff is responsible for processing in and out all people arrested in Roane County. RCSO processes arrested people for several agencies, including Harriman Police Department, Rockwood Police Department, Kingston Police Department, Oak Ridge Police Department, Oliver Springs Police Department, Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, Tennessee Highway Patrol, and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Source: http://roanecountytn.gov/officialsdepartments/sheriffs-department/



And from the Prison Handbook, there is much information about the Jail itself - policies and procedures, daily life, inquiries, etc.; as well as Bail Bondsman and other methods of release, for those who qualify:

http://prisonhandbook.com/3670/roane-county-jail-kingston-tn/

 

[TheSubCommander]

Wow, if only they hadn't fired her from playing Kes all those years ago, poor Jennifer Lien might not have lost her mind and turned to meth, or whatever she is on.

 

[Lynx]

Not to be churish, and with all the hope that she can recover and find the happy life that she deserves, but given how close she and Kate Mulgrew apparently were on the Voyager set, maybe a guest role on Orange Is The New Black beckons. Or the real-life equivalent.....

It's bade enough to have to see Mulgrew in that series. It sucks!

 

[Lynx]

I'm doing a massive Trek rewatch/read marathon, and I'm going to be watching The Gift soon. I expect it will be even more emotional because of all this real life drama.

I haven't watched that episode since I first aw it back in the 90's and I will never watch it again, not even at gunpoint.

My Voyager rewatch/read marathons always end with "Worst Case Scenario" and my own written stories.

But this whole "real life drama" has affected me badly so I don't know if I will ever watch the series again.

Yesterday, I was in a bad mood due to a hockey game I watched (wrong team won) so I decided to watch "Furture's End". But not even my favorite villain Henry Starling did cheer me up so I quit after the first part and ended up watching "Taken " with Liam Neeson instead. More fitting to my current mood.

 

[DonQuixote99]

Well, she was incarcerated in Harriman, Roane County, Tennessee, not Kentucky. More info about the new (not hardscrabble) Roane County Jail can be found here:

http://prisonhandbook.com/3670/roane-county-jail-kingston-tn/

Dang, I made a mistake in my mind. TN of course, thanks.

Have seen the news stories you quote. As another noted, this is all police and 'neighbor' input, and so one-sided, with much clearly left out.

It seems to me that 'time served' up to now is good and sufficient sanction for all the non-violent misdemeanors charged, however new and nice the jail may be.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Verbal threats are "assault charges".

She threatened to kill police officers.

Jennifer will be very lucky if that alone doesn't get her a couple years, unless she was "off her face" on something and it was just seen as heat of the moment from a "whatever is/was wrong with her".

(Wrong state, but google is being difficult.)

Under California Penal Code 422, “criminal threats” can be charged either as a misdemeanor or felony offense. In other words, it is a “wobbler.” The level of the penalty depends on the facts of the case and your criminal history. If charged as a misdemeanor, you face up to 1 year in a county jail. If charged as a felony, you face up to 4 years in the California state prison.

 

[SeerSGB]

Some info on Tennesse's law

Does this mean I can be charged with assault even if I don’t touch someone?

Yes. If you cause someone to “reasonably fear” bodily injury, then you can be charged with assault, even if you do not touch them in any manner.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I had time to think.

Mental health aside, how's her physical health?

You know how it seems like she was trying desperately hard to make them throw away the key?

Federal prisoners get bumped up near the top of transplant lists and are provided with free medication that is deemed necessary.

It is unlikely and convoluted, and probably requiring a boxcar more insanity than has already been displayed, but if it's a choice between waiting years for a kidney transplant as a civilian, or waiting weeks for a kidney transplant as a prisoner, this is how to save a life.

 

[borgboy]

Lynx, have you read the Voyager: String Theory trilogy? It really redeems Kes from Fury and explains away the wretched things done to Kes. They're also really well written with other plots going on too. I'm going to re-read those down the road in my rewatch/read marathon. I haven't gotten to them yet but I also know that Kes makes a small but important appearance in the new Voyager relaunch novels.
I hate to hear that all this real life tragedy could drive you from watching Voyager again. I hate to hear anyone lose contact with something they love. Whatever Lien's real life problems, Kes is still her legacy of a very positive and (for me anyways) an inspiring character. I will rewatch those episode and see the good in them.

On the subject of Lien being better off locked up for now - reflecting on the comments here I realize I probably am being naive and also identifying my ongoing family tragedy with my niece locked up on drug charges with what Lien's going thru. I know my niece was in such bad condition we were afraid she wouldn't live much longer the way she was going, so her being detained in jail may have saved her life, but that's not the way it is for everyone.

If anyone knew of a legitimate Go Fund Me kind of thing to help Lien I'd consider contributing. I'm of two minds there, because she's had two arrests so close together, that she may be of more danger to herself and others if she's released, but Guy's comments about the dangers of jail have made me have second thoughts on that. If nothing else maybe her fans doing something to show her we care could help as much as the monetary help. She does seem to be pretty alone in the world.

 

[Akiraprise]

Sorry, but that's funny stuff right there.

I don't know if you refer to the "please wear clothes" part.

If not, please consider the following: I'm not from the United States, so I have some cultural difficulties to understand why somebody, who showed bodyparts in public, has to be arrested by two policemen two days later and actually has to go to PRISON for two weeks.

I admit I had to check the word, since english is a foreign language for me and I hope I chose the correct one: I wanted to refer to the principle of commensurabilty.

And if you (or somebody else) think that citory letters(?) by the police or the court don't work anyway so you better send an arresting-commando right away, you're free to do so. But you should not laugh about people, who think that they do.

Not Prison, county lock up. State and Federal Prison is post trial and they get a judgement on you. County lock up is for those waiting for bail, terms of less than 1 year, and those waiting for trial. 2 weeks isn't that long in county if no one is posting the bail; though why she doesn't get a bailsbondman to do it, I don't know.

And citory letters are not done in TN, I don't know about other states. If they're going it pick up, they come a knocking.

I was referring to the send them a letter asking them to turn themselves in part. That's not something commonly done in the States. People don't typically do as they're asked. In this case, even had Jennifer been sent a letter, it's clear she had no intention of cooperating with police.

 

[Trekkin]

I don't know about in the States, but here it's treated pretty seriously because it's a sexual crime against children. If you're doing it on purpose, it's indecent assault against a child (a broad crime that covers all sex crimes outside of actual penetration and possessing/distributing child pornography.)

And of course, running around naked in front of children is usually a sign that you're not well. Since that might snowball into something more directly harmful (and you have committed a crime so they legally can intervene) then the police (hopefully) will try to keep an eye on you. If you're found to be mentally ill, they can also get you examined snd some treatment.

Of course, that's in a perfect world where everyone does their jobs and is as caring as their supposed to be. Lien has priors, and that's sort of thing comes back to bite you. If she'd had a history of complaints and warnings (though not arrests), that also means they'd probably be more severe. Threatening to kill the cops wouldn't have convinced anyone that she should be left alone.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If the child was pre-verbal, and crying for attention (there were 3 kids.) and not crying from being in pain, or maybe sad, we are talking about a 2 year old or younger. A two year old would not care. 2 year olds still arn't quite sure why we wear clothes.

If we are talking about a 6 year old on the front lawn screaming because he is hungry, and still breast feeding, anyone of us would have had to created a lid to keep down our own naked protest similar to what Jennifer made that day.

Do I have to explain that by "lid" I mean "selfcontrol"? Good.

If Jennifer is getting charged with indecent exposure to a minor because she had a semi naked episode in front of a %70 blind four month old, who is more doorstop than human being, then I completely understand her contempt against the universe.

How old were the children?

Why were they/one of them screaming?

 

[Trekkin]

Hey, I didn't say it was always fair. I didn't even say that's the case with Lien (bloody Americans having entirely different sets of laws for each bloody state). It's just that's the procedure here.

Police do have a degree of discretion, but priors or a history of warnings can affect that.

Mitigating circumstances aren't really a cops area anyway - that's the stuff that gets hashed out in court. Depending on the nitty-gritty details, it very well could get to a summary hearing and be thrown out. But unfortunately for Lien, she's apparently still famous enough to have to deal with 'the court of public opinion' and everyone there is a hanging judge.

It looks like she did make bail, but her bond wasnt paid. Best I can find about the kids ages is that all three 'were under 13'.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The mother/neighbour should have had discretion. This event deserved some eye rolling, not a 911 call, and adding Jennifer to the sex offenders registry.

However...

If Jennifer was a problematic drug addict/alcoholic bad neighbour bringing down property values, then definitely something had to be done about her, and the Neighbourhood Association had to get rid of this woman by any means necessary, as if the ends justified the means.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is all because Jennifer hasn't mowed her front lawn in 8 months.

 

[ihno]

@Akiraprise: Thanks. Sounds like a rather bad political culture to me.

The mother/neighbour should have had discretion. This event deserved some eye rolling, not a 911 call, and adding Jennifer to the sex offenders registry.

Exactly what I think. But that's "the US" it seems: always overreacting if something has to do with the human body or sexuality.

I remember very well the case of Raoul Wuthrich, who was arrested as a "sex offender" at the age of 10 because he was helping his three year old sister on the toilet. It's 15 years ago but I guess things like that are still daily business.

Sorry, I can't refrain from sarcasm: Is breast-feeding your child a sex offense too in some States? If a mother has two children and wants to breast-feed the younger one, does she have to hide from the older one?

 

[borgboy]

The whole thing about it being indecent that Lien showed her breasts is blatantly sexist. If a man in the same situation had gone shirtless it would be a non issue. Criminalizing an act only when a woman does it is wrong.
Which reduces the whole incident to a mooning. This whole thing sounds like it's been blown out of proportion. I'm surprised this incident is getting so much attention and not much is said about the recent incident where she rammed a police car, which seems much more serious. I think you could be right Guy, that this could be down to something as petty as an unmowed lawn.
If she made bail but her bond wasn't paid what does that mean? Is Lien free?

 

[Guy Gardener]

She's been in Jail since the third.

Her bail is $2500.

It hasn't been paid since we last had an update 3 days ago.

Bail is an amount of money that will be returned to you when you show up for your court date.

A bail Bondsman will pay your entire entire bail, that will be returned to them when you show up for your court date, if you give them 10 percent of the bail forever that they will not return to you.

A skiptracer is the civilian who hunts you for the Bail Bondsman if you do not show up for your court date or it seems that you are not going to show up for your court date.

A bounty hunter does not work for a bail bondsman, but gets "rewards" for tracking down persons who did not show up for their court date.

 

[hux]

The whole thing about it being indecent that Lien showed her breasts is blatantly sexist. If a man in the same situation had gone shirtless it would be a non issue.

Conversely, if a man had started swinging his dick around in a drunken stupor to show his annoyance at the neighbours, he'd have been escorted away by the police.... and an angry, violent mob with pitchforks.

Let's not pretend she didn't do anything wrong here.

She did.

 

[ihno]

Let's not pretend she didn't do anything wrong here.

She did.

But let's not pretend that this would be a major crime everywhere in the world either.

 

[Trekkin]

We don't really know what's been going on leading up to this, or even what happened in that situation. This might have been an ongoeing thing that's happened a million times and this was the tipping point, she might have said something that knocks it up into 'creeper' or threatening territory, or we might just have an over sensitive neighbour. No one knows.

I actually once had a legal aid client who was arrested for mooning kids. I can't tell you a lot because a) I'm not meant to and b) it involved minors, but basically he'd wait where they'd get off the school bus and then pull down his pants. He did get in trouble and he's not very well.