HOLLIDAYSBURG – A Blair County criminal defense attorney accused of intentionally affixing and displaying the wrong registration sticker on her vehicle is describing those now withdrawn charges as bogus.

“This is not a situation that the truth came out, because the truth was known all along,” attorney Kristen L. Anastasi, 34, 1812 Tahoe St., said.

Criminal charges accusing Anastasi of intentionally affixing and displaying of the wrong vehicle registration sticker were withdrawn this week when she entered guilty pleas to vehicle code violations for failing to stop at a stop sign and driving an unregistered vehicle.

“The criminal charges were withdrawn because justice is blind, not deaf and dumb,” Anastasi said.

Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio described that conclusion as ridiculous.

“Those charges were withdrawn because of negotiations with her counsel, not because they weren’t valid,” Consiglio said.

Anastasi’s attorney, Steven Passarello, has referred to her actions as an innocent mistake.

And in a written statement to the Mirror, Anastasi explained that, when stopped on Aug. 25 by an Altoona police officer for a stop sign violation, she and the officer simultaneously discovered that she had affixed the wrong sticker to her vehicle’s license plate.

She said the error was recognized during that stop, not when she affixed the sticker which should have been displayed on her other vehicle.

Despite “an honest mistake without criminal intent or motive,” Anastasi said police subsequently misquoted her out of context “in a pathetic attempt to try to justify the filing of bogus charges” against her, a criminal defense attorney.

She called the action disheartening and referred to it as a blatant abuse of discretion.

Consiglio said Anastasi should calm down and confront reality.

“This officer did exactly what he should have done,” Consiglio said. “And we would have done the same thing with any other person facing these kind of charges.”

Anastasi said the district attorney and police don’t arrive at dropping criminal charges lightly, and did so in her case because they knew the truth.

Consiglio countered: “She’s fortunate we worked out the arrangements we did.”

“I hope when they stop the next innocent mother with her 2-year-old son in the back seat coming home from a fair, they’re a lot better at it,” Anastasi said.