SICK INTERNET SUICIDE NURSE MAY NOT GO TO JAIL

EVIL

AN evil nurse who trawled internet chat rooms and encouraged depressed people to kill themselves has been found guilty of aiding suicides but may see little or no jail time.    
William Melchert-Dinkel posed as a suicidal female nurse to win his victims' trust, then entered into false suicide pacts with them, offering detailed instructions on how they could take their own lives.   Prosecutor's said the 48-year-old was obsessed with suicide and hanging and sought out potential victims online.
Melchert-Dinkel, a former nurse from Fairbault, told police he did it for the "thrill of the chase."

He admitted participating in online chats about suicide with up to 20 people and entering into fake suicide pacts with about 10 people, five of whom he believed killed themselves.
In March of two counts of aiding suicide in the deaths of English man Mark Drybrough, 32,  who hung himself in 2005 and Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Canada who jumped into a frozen river in 2008.
But despite facing a maximum penalty of 15-years behind bars under Minnesota state law and a $30,000 fine for each count worksheets prepared by probation officers as part of the pre-sentencing report point to much less - and presume that a prison sentence would be stayed.
Rice County District Court Judge Thomas Neuville, who convicted Melchert-Dinkel in March, will be the one who decides the sentence after reading the worksheets and hearing the recommendations of prosecutors and defense attorneys and any comments from the victims' families.
Defense attorney Terry Watkins doesn't dispute prosecutors' account but insists Melchert-Dinkel's activities were protected speech and did not rise to the level of a crime.
Watkins plans to appeal the convictions.