PORT ANGELES — Amber Steim will serve six years in prison with credit for time served in the death of a Crescent Bay nurse under a plea agreement that attorneys announced in open court Thursday.
Steim, 25, of Port Angeles will be sentenced at 9 a.m. Monday after she pleads guilty to vehicular homicide and enters an Alford plea to witness tampering.
“We’re ready to conclude this matter,” said Port Angeles defense attorney Ralph Anderson.
Steim is accused of driving with a 0.23 percent blood-alcohol level when she caused a wreck that killed Ellen Joan DeBondt, a well-known home health nurse and avid outdoorswoman, on state Highway 112 east of Joyce about an hour after sunrise March 6, 2011.
The legal limit in Washington is 0.08 percent.
A reckless-endangerment charge and the legal aggravators to the charges will be dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to vehicular homicide and an Alford plea to witness tampering.
An Alford plea means Steim maintains her innocence but admits there is enough evidence for a conviction.
The 72-month sentence is an agreed recommendation that Anderson reached with Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly.
In addition to credit for time served, Steim will be eligible for a reduced sentence for good behavior.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams dismissed a charge of first-degree murder with extreme indifference in July. Kelly filed that charge in April.
Anderson used case law to argue that his client did not commit murder.
DeBondt, 44, was driving eastbound on her way to work when the wreck occurred at the highway’s intersection with Oxenford Road. The State Patrol responded at 7:54 a.m.
Court papers allege that Steim drank and partied all night, got into an argument at a hotel after-party and was traveling to Freshwater Bay with her friend Nicole Boucher when she caused the crash.
“I know that there are going to be a number of friends and family members who wish to speak [at the sentencing],” Kelly told Williams at a five-minute court hearing Thursday.
Anderson said there are rules that limit the number of people who can speak.
“I am not interested in people beating up on my client for four hours,” Anderson said.
“Just from the tone of the letters I’ve gotten, you’re going to hear a lot of the same stuff.”
Dozens of DeBondt’s friends and family members have written letters to Williams, imploring the judge to reinstate the murder charge.
Williams said he had not read the letters as of Thursday. He said he would review them prior to sentencing if the attorneys wished.
“I don’t have any problem with it,” Anderson said.
“It’s understandable why people are angry, but they show a tremendous ignorance of the law.
“Basically, they’re the same letter.”
Kelly took exception to Anderson’s “gratuitous insult to individuals who are concerned citizens.”
Anderson countered: “My client has been demonized by people who know nothing about the case.
“My position is that they should have been better informed, and just because you get to speak doesn’t mean you get to say stupid things,” Anderson said.
Anne Shaffer, one of DeBondt’s friends, also took exception to Anderson’s comments.
“To have her killed this way is horrifying,” Shaffer said in a telephone interview.
“Then to have to sit with her family and friends in the courtroom and be insulted by the defense, and not have the judge stop it, is just about the most unjust thing I’ve seen or witnessed anywhere.”
Williams kept the hearing short and cleared his Monday morning calendar for the sentencing.
The sentencing will coincide with the most recently scheduled trial date.
Shaffer, executive director of the Port Angeles-based Coastal Watershed Institute, said DeBondt was a “regional leader” in aquatic sports.
“Ellen was working with me and the Coastal Watershed Institute on a mentoring effort for high school girls to get them involved in aquatic sports and hopefully an aquatics career,” Shaffer said.
Steim will get credit for spending 10 of the past 18 months in the Clallam County jail.
She posted a $100,000 bail bond 10 days after the wreck but was sent back to jail in December after the alcohol-monitoring device she was wearing detected a 0.058 percent blood-alcohol level Oct. 30.
Steim had been convicted of negligent driving in January 2011. That charge was reduced from physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated at a Port Angeles gas station in November 2010.
Many of the letter-writers referred to the 2007 death of Irene Harris, whom Steim struck and killed while driving at night in Port Angeles, to support a murder charge with “extreme indifference” in DeBondt’s case.
Harris, 49, was walking across Front Street at Albert Street when she was hit by a car driven by a sober Steim. Harris died the next day at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Steim was ticketed for failure to yield to a pedestrian. No felony charges were filed.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
