PORT ANGELES — Two parents charged with abducting their two young children from their Sequim-area grandmother April 27 appeared separately in Clallam County Superior Court on Friday.
The mother, Robin D. Sather, 30, pleaded not guilty to two charges of felony first-degree custodial interference at her arraignment.
She was granted release on personal recognizance by Judge George L. Wood.
The arraignment for the father, Paul V. Brawner Jr., 27, was reset to 9 a.m. Friday after Wood granted a motion by Brawner’s attorney, John Hayden of Clallam Public Defender, that Brawner should be appointed another attorney because Hayden is representing Sather.
Wood appointed Port Angeles lawyer Karen Unger to represent Brawner.
Brawner was ordered by Wood to remain in the Clallam County jail on $10,000 bail, also on two charges of felony first-degree custodial interference.
Each charge is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
A hearing to set Sather’s trial date will be at 9 a.m. Friday in Superior Court, the same morning Brawner will be arraigned.
The two were arrested about 25 minutes after the alleged abduction and the children retrieved unharmed, according to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities have said the couple are transients and were living in their car.
In releasing Sather, Wood cited her lack of criminal history.
Sather also told Wood that she will stay at a hotel temporarily and is in the process of getting housing at Serenity House of Clallam County.
“So I have a place to live,” she told Wood.
Sheriff’s Office account
An arrest report filed in court records gives this account:
At about 2:40 p.m. April 27, Sather and Brawner were visiting their 14-month-old and 4-year-old children, who had been placed in their grandmother’s custody by state Child Protective Services.
The couple were in a verbal argument with the grandmother when each parent grabbed a child, got into their car and left the premises.
After the grandmother called 9-1-1, a sheriff’s deputy stopped the car at 3:07 p.m.
Neither child was in a child seat, said deputies, who added that Brawner “was very uncooperative and declined to give a verbal statement.”
Sather told a deputy they took the children because they were going to Port Angeles to visit a lawyer “to do something about the CPS issue” but could not provide information about the lawyer, according to the report.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
