Sultana enters probation program for charges filed last year for a domestic incident

Criminal charges will be removed from her record after probation period

Taiba Sultana / Photo from the candidate

Easton City Council member and state House candidate Taiba Sultana was approved for a special probation program in Northampton County Court Wednesday after being charged with harassment and simple assault last summer. 

The charges, for a domestic incident at her home last July, will be removed from her record if she pays court costs within the next 30 days, her lawyer Ettore Angelo of Quakertown said. She has already completed counseling required as part of the program known as Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, according to Angelo.

Sultana will face incumbent Rep. Robert Freeman in the April 23 Democratic primary for the 136th District.

President Judge Craig A. Dally presided at the hearing, where District Attorney Stephen Baratta was the prosecutor. Baratta did not respond to several requests for comment. 

Angelo said he would have preferred the case be dismissed.

“I have represented all defendants in my almost 40 years of doing this,” he said. “This kind of outcome is what we need. This didn’t have to go into the criminal court system at all. The family benefited from some counseling but the whole situation is part of a systemic deficiency. Criminal charges were the wrong approach for this case. Still, the outcome was fair.”

In a written statement sent to the press, Sultana said, “Like many people of color and poor people, I made the only option that was given to me to protect my family from the vicious attacks of those in power as well as keep my voice so that I can fight for my family and yours.”

Sultana pledges that this event has motivated her to pursue “full justice” against “the machine that has been used to defame me and so many others.” 

She also said that this has strengthened her commitment to “substantial criminal justice reform,” including elimination of cash bail, prohibition of private prisons, and investigations within police departments that promote transparency.