Deborah Roberts

Yeah, yeah.

He denied the allegations.

He was charged with aggravated arson, perjury, and as you said, insurance fraud.

So in this case, yes, he did deny those allegations and he actually took a plea deal.

He didn't serve any time.

He pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor count of insurance fraud and was sentenced to three years.

As you said, those charges dropped.

does no time and i want to talk with you more about that julia don't go anywhere because you've heard that expression where there's smoke there's fire well this arson investigation sparked a whole new prescriptive on regina's murder 20 years later this cold case was about to heat up so when we come back this case lands in court and the testimony would change everything we're going to tell you more about how paul hicks wound up in court and what happens don't go anywhere

Hi there, everybody.

Welcome back to 2020 The After Show.

I am here with Court TV's Julia Jenea, taking you through, I mean, what can only be described as twists and turns of our latest 2020 episode, The Secret in the Water, that aired on Friday night.

Julia, I was struck by prosecutor Dan Kassaris.

He talked to me about how the case was circumstantial.

When they were looking at it, they didn't have anything to absolutely convict Paul of Regina Hicks' murder.

But there was Paul Hicks' friend, Steve Gates.

And I had mentioned that he had a friend that he was with the night that Regina disappeared.

And Gates had never really offered much that would help police when they were investigating.

But now here we are 20 years later, and he's got some things to say, right?

The prosecutor told me that he felt like Gates had just been eaten up by all of this.

It was just so hard.