PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles woman accused of driving away with a car and 10-month old girl that weren’t hers has been sentenced to seven days of community service.
Michaela Danielle Diamond, 30, pleaded guilty to one count each of unlawful imprisonment, taking a motor vehicle without permission and custodial assault Monday in Clallam County Superior court.
The unlawful imprisonment and taking a motor vehicle charges stem from Diamond getting into the car of a woman she knew
Sept. 13 at Ocean View Cemetery and driving a short distance west along 18th Street with the woman’s child in the back seat.
The custodial assault charge came from a separate incident in February in which Diamond bit a Clallam County corrections deputy while Diamond was in jail after she refused to come out of a holding tank, according to court records.
The two cases were combined in Superior Court, according to court records.
In the Sept. 13 case, Port Angeles police found the 10-month old girl unharmed inside the car on a piece of private property near the city’s transfer station and landfill about 15 minutes after the mother called police at 3:15 p.m.
Diamond was found and arrested about 15 minutes later riding a bicycle on the northwest corner of the landfill, according to police accounts.
Diamond had driven with the mother of the child to the cemetery to visit the grave of the mother’s grandmother.
Diamond told police she drove away in the woman’s car after she became uncomfortable because the mother “started acting strange”
Diamond later left the child in the car with the window open after she saw a bicycle leaning against a tree on the way to the landfill and rode away on it, according to police accounts.
As part of her guilty plea, Diamond received credit for three months and 23 days spent in the Clallam County jail, according to Superior Court records, and must perform 56 hours of community service.
Diamond also will undergo evaluations of her mental health and for drug and alcohol addiction, according to court records.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsula
dailynews.com.
