York woman, 55, gets 90 days in jail for walking naked outside her home

The 55-year-old York woman arrested in June for the second time in a year after a livid neighbor saw her walking outside her home while wearing nothing but panties was sentenced to 90 days in jail Thursday after pleading guilty to indecent exposure.

But her lawyer said that if Jeannie Jonas was a topless man walking outside a rural home, there would be no complaint and Jonas would never be arrested, let alone prosecuted and sent to jail for three months.

Jonas contemplated challenging the gender bias, but agreed to plead guilty and admitted a “judgment error.”

Jonas was already on probation after pleading guilty to the same charge last year after a 2013 incident where deputies found Jonas topless outside. In June, Jonas, who has no family after the death of her parents years ago, told police she wanted to join a nudist colony and liked to walk outside topless because of the heat.

Jonas lives on a rural road outside York – just down the street from a Muslim abattoir that specializes in goat meat. Prosecutors said neighbors have seen Jonas walking outside naked or nearly nude for eight years, and Jonas admitted in court Thursday she liked going outside in the back and side of her rural home west of York “without a top” for years.

Jonas said she has had problems with a female neighbor , calling the neighbor “hostile,” but apologized in court Thursday for a mistake of walking in the front of the house topless where others could see her.

“I made a serious error in judgment going out where I could be seen,” Jonas said.

Yet 16th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Erin Joyner told visiting Judge Mark Hayes that Jonas’ naked strolls have been “an ongoing problem for eight years” for the neighbor. In the June incident, the neighbor told police that Jonas walked across the street topless and walked around several times before finally going home.

Joyner said the 90-day sentence “sends a message to Ms. Jonas that the next time the result will be more severe.”

Indecent exposure carries up to three years in prison. When pleading guilty last year, Jonas was sentenced to probation.

Jonas’ lawyer, assistant public defender Phil Smith, who handled her prior conviction, said in court he and Jonas discussed challenging the law based on gender. Jonas “never intends to hurt anyone,” Smith said.

Other neighbors “see this as harmless,” Smith said, but both Smith and Jonas accept that the one neighbor across the street “does not see it that way.”

Smith acknowledged that the prosecution of a 55-year-old woman for walking topless on her own property is a “sad case,” saying Jonas is a “simple lady of limited means.”

This story was originally published January 15, 2015 at 3:25 PM.