PORT ANGELES — Amber Steim’s lawyer told a Clallam County Superior Court judge on Friday that his client is prepared to plead guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless endangerment for the March 2011 death of a home health nurse.
Barring a plea agreement, the 25-year-old Port Angeles woman will go on trial Sept. 17 for the death of Ellen DeBondt, 44.
DeBondt was killed in head-on wreck while traveling to work on state Highway 112 west of Port Angeles.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said she has not received a report from a defense expert that she needs to interview before trial.
Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor scheduled an Aug. 31 hearing for consideration of Kelly’s request for discovery and a Sept. 6 hearing for pretrial motions.
“Mrs. Kelly and I have been in aggressive settlement discussions,” said Port Angeles attorney Ralph Anderson.
Steim is charged with vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and witness tampering in the death of the well-known health care provider and avid outdoorswoman.
Blood-alcohol level
The State Patrol said Steim was driving with a 0.23 blood-alcohol level — nearly three times over the 0.08 legal limit — when she crossed a centerline and rumble strip and crashed into DeBondt’s pickup truck at 7:54 a.m. on March 6, 2011, at Oxenford Road east of Joyce.
Kelly said she filed two motions to compel evidence from the defense, the last of which had an Aug. 10 deadline.
As of Friday, Kelly said she had not received the report she needs from Dr. Kenneth Muscatel, a Seattle neuropsychologist who will likely testify that Steim suffered a concussion in the wreck.
Anderson said Muscatel is waiting on a report he needs from Olympic Medical Center, where Steim was treated after the crash.
“I understand that Mr. Anderson may not be able to control his investigator,” said Kelly, who did not address a potential settlement in Friday’s status hearing.
“Be that as it may, the state is entitled to this information.”
Kelly added: “Were the state in this situation, I suspect defense counsel would be asking for sanctions.”
Taylor made no rulings Friday other than to schedule the next court dates.
Taylor was sitting in for Judge Ken Williams, who has handled the Steim case.
Williams was out of the area this week attending to a family emergency.
‘Wild goose chase’
“We indicated, after the blood tests came back, that were interested in pleading to vehicular homicide as charged at that time,” Anderson told Taylor.
“We then went on a seven- or eight-month wild goose chase.”
Anderson was referring to the first-degree murder with extreme indifference charge that Kelly filed in April.
Williams dismissed the charge in July after Anderson filed a “Knapstad motion” based on 1986 case law that allows defendants to request dismissal of a murder charge.
Anderson argued that the facts did not support a first-degree murder charge.
Kelly filed a motion for Williams to reconsider the dismissal, but the judge was satisfied with Anderson’s arguments.
Another hold-up was a finding that Steim violated her bail conditions.
After posting a $100,000 bail, Steim was required to wear a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring bracelet, which detected a 0.058 percent blood-alcohol level in October.
Steim was remanded back to the Clallam County jail, where she is currently being held on $500,000 bail.
In preparing to argue his 21st murder case, Anderson arranged for University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor and regional weather expert Cliff Mass to testify about the icy road conditions on the morning of the wreck.
He also hired an accident reconstruction expert to recreate the scene.
Both of those experts were called off.
Guilty plea
Anderson said he has offered a guilty plea on the vehicular homicide and reckless endangerment charges.
“We won’t plea on the witness tampering,” Anderson said.
Anderson said Muscatel will testify that Steim suffered a concussion in the wreck and was stilled dazed when she told a friend to remind her lawyer that she drank alcohol after the crash because she was in pain.
Anderson said he had subpoenaed OMC to release his client’s medical information.
“The only thing that has not been done was getting the records from the hospital so that we can confirm whether she had a concussion or not,” Anderson said, adding that he is otherwise fully prepared for trial.
“This is the most prepared serious case that I have ever been involved in,” he said.
Kelly maintained that she needs the final report from Muscatel that Williams ordered.
“I understand counsel’s situation, it’s certainly one the state has been in, where we’ve done everything that we could to get something but hadn’t been able to get it,” Kelly said.
“Frankly, the court says that’s not good enough.”
More than two dozen of DeBondt’s friends and family members attended the hearing wearing pink hearts on their shirts in DeBondt’s memory.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
