A disgraced former Livingston County judge won’t receive any special treatment during her upcoming jail sentence but she will be segregated from other inmates.

Ex-Judge Theresa Brennan was sentenced Friday and ordered to serve six months in jail and 18 months of probation. She must also complete 200 hours of community service. She earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of perjury in exchange for two lesser charges of tampering with evidence and misconduct in office being dropped. Some questions have been raised as to how she’ll be treated while incarcerated, since she could be serving time with people she sent to jail. Brennan is required to report to the Livingston County Jail next Friday.

Sheriff Mike Murphy says inmates are simply classified as minimum, medium or maximum security. He tells WHMI she won’t be treated any different than any other inmate - with the exception that there will be some special consideration given and she will be segregated from the rest of the population but that’s normal. He says every sheriff and jail in the state has some sort of procedure and policies when dealing with any high profile inmates they receive. Murphy noted that someone with significant health issues would typically be segregated from the general population. In this case, it would be more of a safety concern because someone could attempt to assault Brennan or make her life a little more difficult than it would be otherwise just being locked up. Murphy again stressed the policies and procedures in place – saying it’s a bad day for them if somebody in their care and custody gets injured because it is their job to protect them. He says sometimes it can’t be done but in this case, they know going in that they’ll have a high profile person and they’ll take those precautions.

Brennan was a judge for 14 years before she was removed from the bench in June by the Michigan Supreme Court. She’s required to turn herself in to the Livingston County Jail to begin serving her sentence next Friday, January 24th at 9am. (JM)