Judge Vonda Evans used compliments and humor to keep Joe Gentz comfortable at his plea hearing Friday in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit.
“You look nice today,” she told Gentz when he first approached the bend, after the last time she saw him he was wearing a jail outfit.
She asked him if he was “a little bit scared” due to the throng of media in the formal courtroom setting.
“A little bit,” Gentz replied.
She suggested he put on his eyeglasses, and when he took them off for a moment, she exclaimed, “Oh, you took them off.”
“You look more handsome with them on,” she told him.
Evans asked him several legally required questions, to which Gentz politely replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
Evans’ soft touch seemed to work.