PORT ANGELES — The woman charged with vehicular homicide and drunken driving from a March 6 wreck that killed a home health nurse was placed in handcuffs and sent back to jail today.
Amber D. Steim, 24, of Port Angeles had posted $50,000 bail and was freed from the Clallam County jail after pleading not guilty to the Class A felony last Wednesday.
Last Wednesday, Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor lowered Steim’s original bail of $100,000 at her arraignment. Taylor raised the bail back to $100,000 today after Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg alleged that Steim had tampered with a witness.
His motion to modify Steim’s conditions of release accused Steim of phoning her passenger in the pickup truck while in jail. Steim allegedly asked the passenger to say that she drank alcohol at the scene because she was in pain.
“The legal significance would be to affect the validity of her blood-alcohol level from the test taken at the scene,” Troberg wrote in his motion.
Court documents show Steim’s blood-alcohol level was 0.239 percent after the wreck that killed Ellen J. DeBondt on state Highway 112 between Joyce and Port Angeles. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.
DeBondt, 44, of Crescent Beach was a home health nurse affiliated with Olympic Medical Center.
