Kitsap Crime and Justice

CASE BACKGROUND: Testimony begins today in the case of State of Washington vs. Megan Mollet. Mollet is charged by county prosecutors with rendering criminal assistance to the man who killed Washington State Trooper Tony Radulescu on Feb. 23. Mollet is also charged with making false statements to police.

Mollet’s attorney is arguing that she was under duress at the time of and after the shooting.

We’re in a bit of a delay this morning but court is expected to begin shortly.

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CASE BACKGROUND: Megan G. Mollet, the 18-year-old charged by county prosecutors with rendering criminal assistance to the man authorities say murdered Washington State Trooper Tony Radulescu, is on trial this week.

Sixty people were considered to serve on the jury considering the charges against Mollet, including making a false statement to a public servant, a gross misdemeanor, and the original rendering charge, a felony.

This afternoon will be opening statements from Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Tim Drury and Mollet’s attorney, Jonathan Morrison.

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CASE BACKGROUND: The plaintiff Ostling family is expected to wrap up its case early this week. They’re suing the city of Bainbridge Island for alleged civil rights violations against Douglas Ostling, the night the 43-year-old was shot and killed by police.

Reporter Tristan Baurick will be in court live blogging the proceedings today. Court is set to begin at 9:30 a.m.

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Here’s a few odds and ends for this week in the world of crime and justice.

• The case of Ostling vs. Bainbridge continues in federal court this week. The Kitsap Sun is expected to be in court for Tuesday’s testimony.
• The sentencing of Darlene Green, the woman convicted by a jury of the manslaughter of her husband, has been delayed to June 11 in Kitsap County Superior Court.
• Megan G. Mollet, the 18-year-old charged by county prosecutors with rendering criminal assistance to the man authorities say murdered Washington State Trooper Tony Radulescu, will be on trial this week. The Kitsap Sun also plans to cover this trial.
• In today’s new criminal charges filed in the county’s district court, Bremerton police caught a man accused of breaking into a Kitsap Way home on the morning of May 19. Officers interviewed the homeowner, who said she came out of her bedroom and saw a strange man in her home. She asked him “who are you,” and the suspect relied that he had come “there to smoke.” Then, the suspect started to cry, reports said. The suspect left when the home’s occupant said she was calling 911. He was caught by police immediately following.
• Does Facebook cause divorces? One organization claims that the word ‘Facebook’ showed up in a third of all divorce cases last year, according to the WSJ blog SmartMoney.
• Finally, a story you don’t want to miss: tourists are making a big deal out of old prisons, reports the USA Today. From the story:

Old prisons, from famous ones such as Alcatraz to less-known small state facilities, are becoming tourist attractions and drawing a growing number of visitors, operators say.

I wonder if our own McNeil Island will soon become an Alcatraz-like tourist trap.

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CASE BACKGROUND: Did police violate the civil rights of 43-year-old Douglas Ostling when they responded to his home for his 911 call, shot him as he held an axe and then refused to let anyone go into his room as he bled to death?

That’s what eight jurors in Tacoma’s federal U.S. District Court will have to decide.

Ostling’s estate, as well as his parents, William and Joyce, are suing the city of Bainbridge Island and its police chief, Jon Fehlman, along with Officer Jeff Benkert, the man who fired the shot that caused the fatal injury.

On Monday, we heard opening statements.

On Tuesday, we heard from Officer Benkert.

And today, we’re hearing from Officer David Portrey, who was with Benkert at the time. There may be other witnesses, too.

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Raise your hand if you’ve found yourself in this situation: cruising down the highway, you come upon a car camping out in the left lane, the driver seemingly oblivious to his responsibility to move into the right lane of traffic.

I think we’ve all been there, staring at the bumper of a clueless motorist (And maybe some of us can admit that we, too, have forgotten to get over).

But here’s the bottom line: left lane camping is illegal.

Troopers do pull over motorists for hanging out in the left lane. They’re often met with this answer: “I didn’t realize it was against the law.”

The state law is quite clear. RCW 46.61.100, section 4 states “It is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic.”

Here’s the rules, the state patrol said in a press release:

Washington State’s Keep Right Law requires all vehicles stay to the right except to pass and the left lane is used primarily as a passing lane when there are two or more lanes moving in the same direction.  All vehicles towing trailers or vehicles over 10,000 pounds are prohibited from using the left lane when there are three or more lanes moving in the same direction.

“We understand it can be frustrating for drivers when you have other motorists camped out in the left lane,” said WSP Captain Ron Rupke, District 5 commander.  “But this also doesn’t mean motorists can drive in an aggressive manner or use the left lane to speed.”

Slower moving vehicles traveling in the left lane create unsafe conditions which can include:
•  Causing other drivers to make dangerous passes on the right side.
•  Frustration with the left lane drivers leading to aggressive driving.
•  Slower response time for emergency vehicles responding to collisions or calls for service.

Allowing faster moving traffic to pass is always the best choice.  Frustrated drivers that travel in an aggressive manner often choose to weave in and out of cars that travel “too slow” by their standards.  Remember that if a driver chooses to exceed the speed limit in the left lane it is much easier for troopers to stop them for the violation if the slower moving vehicles are not in the left lane.

The law for left lane travel (RCW 46.61.100 – Keep right except for passing) states it is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic.  The left lane does not include high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.  The fine for failure to keep right except for passing is $124.

When there are three or more lanes moving in the same direction, additional restrictions are placed upon all vehicles towing trailers or vehicles over 10,000 pounds.  These vehicles are prohibited from using the left lane except to prepare for a left turn at an intersection or exit ramp.  These restrictions do not apply to a vehicle using an HOV lane.  The HOV lane is not considered the left-hand lane of a roadway.  The fine for illegal use of the left lane is $124.

On certain stretches of interstate freeways and state highways, speed limits are posted for passenger cars and trucks.  The word “trucks” on signs giving notice to maximum speed limits means vehicles over 10,000 pounds and all vehicles in combination.  This restriction applies to all vehicles towing a trailer regardless of the size of vehicle or trailer (RCW 46.61.410).  Fines for speeding are based on miles per hour over the posted speed limit.

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It continues to be a busy week for crime and justice news in Kitsap County.

Today, the federal civil rights trial Ostling vs. Bainbridge Island continues, with Officer David Portrey and William Ostling taking the witness stand. William’s son, Douglas, was killed in October 2010 in an encounter with police.

The Kitsap Sun won’t be live blogging today’s proceedings but rest assured we will be keeping up on the day’s events. Follow the links for coverage to the case’s opening arguments and Officer Jeff Benkert’s testimony.

Elsewhere, a plea deal was announced Tuesday in the assault cases filed in the wake of the Armin Jahr School shooting that left a third-grader critically wounded in February. Jamie Chaffin, mother of the boy, has agreed to plead guilty to unlawful possession charges in exchange for a little over a year prison sentence and her testimony against her boyfriend and owner of the gun taken to school that day.

Finally, there is a scheduled change-of-plea in Kitsap County Superior Court for one of the people charged with rendering criminal assistance to Joshua Blake, the man authorities believe murdered Washington State Trooper Tony Radulescu during a traffic stop in February.

I’ll keep you posted.

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CASE BACKGROUND: Today, the plaintiffs will call the two police officers, who responded to the Ostling home on Oct. 26, 2010.

Officers Jeff Benkert and David Portrey arrived at the Ostlings’ Springridge Drive home just before 9 p.m. that night. After a confrontation, Benkert fired his duty weapon, hitting 43-year-old Douglas Ostling in the leg.

Ostling ultimately died from the injury.

In opening statements, the Ostling’s attorney said that the 43-year-old’s rights were violated because police did not get a warrant to go check on him, that the shooting was unnecessary and that authorities denied aid to Douglas Ostling before he bled to death.

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CASE BACKGROUND: Opening statements are expected today in the civil case accusing Bainbridge police officers of violating a 43-year-old mentally ill man’s civil rights when an officer shot and killed him in October 2010.

Lawyers for the estate and parents of Douglas Ostling, shot by police at his Springridge Drive home, are prepared to argue police violated his civil rights by going to his room without a search warrant, shooting him, and then refusing to allow his family to check on him.

The case is before U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton and is expected to last around two weeks.

Ostling suffered from mental illness and called 911 Oct. 26, 2010, making incoherent statements. Details of the encounter are disputed: police said Ostling was armed with an ax. He was shot in the leg and bled to death in his room.

Jury selection has been completed in Judge Leighton’s court. Opening statements will follow at 1:30 p.m.

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Kitsap County prosecutors appear to have filed the first ever charges in the county against someone for possessing synthetic marijuana. “Spice,” “K2″ and other so-called “synthetic cannabinoids” were officially banned by the state’s pharmacy board in November 2010.

Possession of substances known as “bath salts,” “plant food,” “Ivory Wave,” and “White Lightning,” are now felonies and can be punishable by up to five years in prison.

(Other authorities, I should add — the Navy, for instance — had already banned Spice.)

In early May, it appears the first person in Kitsap — a 24-year-old Poulsbo man — was charged with having Space.

“Not positive Josh,” wrote back Kevin Kelly, the deputy prosecutor who charged the case, “But it is the first time I have charged it so I think chances are good that it is.”

Here’s what happened: Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies were called to the Suquamish Clearwater Casino in the early morning hours of May 5 for the report of a man seen using a narcotics pipe. Surveillance video showed him using the pipe, which was glass and “multi-colored,” sheriff’s reports of the incident said.

While he denied having a pipe at first, a deputy saw a something in his front left pocket “weighing it down.”

The deputy said it didn’t smell like marijuana and asked the man what kind of tobacco he smoked.

“He thought for a minute and then told me that it was not tobacco but that it was ‘spice,’” deputies wrote.

In his pocket, deputies found a container that had “quality potpourri,” written on it. It was cotton candy flavor.

The man said he’d gotten it at a store in Poulsbo. He was arrested.

The deputy who drove him to jail said the Poulsbo man “was asking the same questions over and over again.”

“He seemed to be very impaired and altered,” the deputy wrote in his report.

He was booked into the Kitsap County jail for possession of the drug and charged with the same crime the next day by prosecutors.

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