The Utah woman had been charged with three indecent offenses.
Los Angeles:
A Utah woman accepted a plea deal after being accused of being topless in front of her stepchildren in her own home.
Tilli Buchanan chose the plea to avoid having the criminal case brought to justice and registering as a sex offender if convicted, her lawyer told the local media.
"She wanted to appeal," lawyer Randy Richards told the Salt Lake Tribune, describing the case as "ridiculous."
"But it was pretty much my advice that she didn't – not because I don't think she would win, but there is a chance that she will be judged by a jury and then by her if we go all the way going to court had to be registered in the sex offender registry. "
Buchanan had been charged with three indecent crimes involving a child after her three stepchildren, ages 9 to 13, saw her topless while she and her husband installed insulation in their garage.
The husband was also topless, but he was not charged.
The couple had said they stripped down to their underwear so they wouldn't get dirty.
Buchanan was indicted in early 2019 after the children's mother reported the incident to the authorities.
She argued in court documents that there was no reason why her husband could not bare his chest.
But prosecutors disagreed, stressing that indecency includes a woman's breasts in today's American society.
In her request on Tuesday, Buchanan admitted to having her breasts exposed in front of an adult, which "triggered an affront or alarm". The indictment will be dropped after a year as long as it doesn't commit another crime.
"The whole thing is ridiculous," said her lawyer. "You (or other women) have to worry about your kids seeing her topless? It's ridiculous."
He said his client had essentially pleaded guilty to topless in front of her husband.
The Utah American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in the case, had said that the charges against Buchanan had been exceeded by prosecutors and should never have gone so far.
"When I talk to people about the case, none of them understood that they could be charged with crime if they walked around their own house with their shirts off," ACLU lawyer Leah Farrell told New York earlier Times.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated feed.)
