Tearful plea reduces penalty for Peabody burglary

SALEM – A Beverly woman who admitted her role in a housebreak last September in Peabody was able to convince a Superior Court judge to chop a year off the sentence that she was expected to receive.Linda Michalski, 49, a former construction worker whose last known address was 31 Mill St., Beverly, changed her plea of innocent to guilty Monday in Salem Superior Court to charges of breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony and larceny from a building before Judge Timothy Q. Feeley.She was expected to receive five to eight years in state prison but, after she pleaded tearfully, Feeley changed his mind and sentenced her to four to seven years in state prison.”I want to apologize to the people whose home I broke into. I hope you recognize my illness and give me less time for my family’s sake. When I got laid off I got depressed. I’m wrong for what I did,” Michalski tearfully pleaded with Feeley.Michalski, a mother of two children, told Feeley she is bi-polar and has ADHD and has tried to commit suicide many times because of her mental illness.Michalski has been free on bail since being arraigned. The judge credited her the five days she spent in jail in lieu of bail on the case.