PORT ANGELES — A 24-year-old Port Angeles woman charged with vehicular homicide in connection with a March 6 wreck that killed a home health nurse from Crescent Beach posted bail for the second time in six days.
Amber Dale Steim, who pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide under the influence of alcohol March 9, posted a $100,000 bail bond Wednesday.
She is accused of being drunk when the pickup truck she was driving crossed the centerline on state Highway 112 between Joyce and Port Angeles and struck another vehicle head-on.
The driver of the other vehicle, Ellen J. DeBondt, 44, a home health nurse affiliated with Olympic Medical Center, died at the scene.
Court records show that Steim’s blood-alcohol level was 0.239 percent after the wreck. The legal limit in Washington state is 0.08 percent.
A Clallam County Superior Court judge lowered Steim’s bail from $100,000 to $50,000 on March 9. Steim paid the 10 percent bail bond the next day, last Thursday, and went home under the court-imposed condition that she not drive.
The same judge — S. Brooke Taylor — raised the bail back to $100,000 Tuesday after Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg accused Steim of tampering with a witness.
Troberg filed a motion for determination of probable cause of witness tampering Wednesday.
The motion contains excerpts from telephone conversations that Steim had with her mother and her passenger in the wreck, Nicole Boucher.
Steim will be charged with witness tampering, a Class C felony, in her next court appearance today at 3 p.m.
Ron Sukert, Clallam County jail superintendent, said the judge doubled Steim’s bail.
“So it’s $100,000 total, rather than $50,000 on one and $100,000 on the other,” Sukert said.
Steim, who was released at about 3 p.m. Wednesday, was responsible for paying 10 percent, or $10,000, of the total bail amount.
The bonding agency is responsible for the rest, Sukert said.
Taylor on Tuesday imposed more conditions of Steim’s release. She must wear an alcohol-detection bracelet, follow a curfew and have no contact with Boucher.
The no-driving condition remains in place.
Court records show that Steim asked Boucher and her mother to tell attorneys that she drank more alcohol after the wreck and before the ambulance arrived.
Troberg said in court that the alleged tampering throws off the validity of the blood-alcohol test.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
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