March 11, 2010

Judge reduces accused father’s bail

By Keri Brenner
The Chronicle

    A The Dalles youth who prosecutors allege injured his infant son on more than a half dozen occasions was ordered held on $250,000 bail Wednesday at a hearing in the Wasco County Courthouse.
    “The allegations that a parent – kin – has repeatedly committed significant acts of violence against an infant are extremely alarming,” said Circuit Court Presiding Judge Paul Crowley of Hood River in announcing his ruling in the case of 17-year-old Kaedyn Kenneth Drake. “These allegations are absolutely horrific.”
    Crowley said he would reduce the total bail amount from $500,000 to $250,000, meaning that Drake’s family would need to post 10 percent — or a $25,000 cash bond — to have him released.
    Drake’s attorney Robert Raschio said those bail amounts were “excessive.”
    “There’s no indication that he would be a threat to the public, and the child is with the state and Kaedyn would have no access to him,” Raschio said.
    Raschio had asked the judge to reduce the total bail amount to $25,000, meaning the family would need to post a cash bond of $2,500 – a sum that family members testified Wednesday they were able to raise.
    But Wasco County Assistant District Attorney Leslie Wolf argued that “the mere fact that of an inability to give bail is not a reason to hold the bail excessive.”
    Raschio argued that said some of the alleged injuries to Drake’s son, born Jan. 4, “have the ring of a very inexperienced parent.”
    He said Drake was not a flight risk because he has multiple family members in the community, has no prior criminal record and has lived in The Dalles most of his life.
Crowley, however, agreed with concerns raised by Wolf about Drake’s “mental state.” Wolf alleged that Drake had injured his son “in at least seven different incidents” and “he had not sought medical attention for the child.”
    She said releasing Drake to his family would give him “access to the same stressors in family connections that are part of the reason that led him to where he is today.”
    Crowley agreed with Wolf’s request on conditions of Kaedyn’s release, if the family were able to post bail. He ordered that the youth have no contact with his son, his girlfriend Alexis Garrelts, who is his son's mother, Alexis’ sister Sarah Garrelts or her mother Sandra Smiggs.
    Drake, an unemployed former worker at McDonald’s restaurant in The Dalles, appeared via video from NORCOR regional jail. He remained somber and quiet throughout the 90-minute proceeding, showing no emotion.
    Drake, who turned himself in to authorities on March 3, has been charged with three counts of first-degree assault, three counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, criminal nonsupport and strangulation.
    A next hearing on procedural details of the case was set for 11 a.m. Friday, March 19 before Crowley.
    The child's injuries, reported Feb. 19 by medical personnel at the Oregon Health Sciences University and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, allegedly include 11 broken ribs, bruises on his right temple, chest, left arm and leg, injuries to both eyes, his mouth and his brain, elevated liver enzymes and a possible broken wrist, Wolf said.
    Raschio argued that the child was now in protective custody with the state Department of Health Services. If released, Drake would be in the custody of his paternal grandmother, Cynthia Hays of The Dalles, and would be closely supervised by his mother, Brandy Drake, a corrections sergeant.
    “He’s never been in trouble before and he’s always been a good kid,” Brandy Drake testified at the hearing.
    Hays testified her grandson “has always been a good boy, kind and loving.”
    Part way through the hearing, Crowley sustained a motion by Raschio to block Wolf from airing a video of Drake shot during a nine-hour interview with police. Wolf called the video a “re-enactment,” but did not elaborate on its contents.
    Raschio repeatedly objected to any showing of the video, saying that press coverage could be prejudicial later during the trial. He said he had not yet seen a copy of the video, despite having requested it about a week earlier.
    “This was shot during the seventh or eighth hour of a nine-hour interview with a 17-year-old boy,” Raschio said.
    Crowley agreed that Wolf had had adequate time to share a copy of the video with Raschio – or at least talk with him about it — prior to the hearing as per pretrial guidelines. Crowley later ordered Wolf to deliver the video and whatever medical and police reports she had available to Raschio by Monday.
    Under query by Crowley, Wolf recounted what authorities said Drake had told them when the youth was asked to explain how his son's injuries might have occurred.     According to Wolf, Drake told police that the broken ribs may have happened when he “applied too much force” on the infant’s chest while swaddling the baby in a blanket or when changing the baby’s diaper.
    Some of the bruises might have happened when transporting the baby into and out of a car seat and bumping the baby on a railing or bar in the car, Drake told police, Wolf said.
    The child’s mouth injury might have happened when Drake tried to get the baby to stop crying, Wolf said Drake told police.
    “He kept crying so then I grabbed a spit-up rag and wiped out around his mouth,” Wolf said, quoting Drake’s statement to police. Drake told police he “used too much force” in wiping the mouth and tore a piece of the baby’s upper frenulum, a piece of skin that attaches the upper lip to the gum.
    When the baby’s mouth started bleeding, “he shoved the washcloth in the baby’s mouth, and when the baby didn’t breathe and his eyes started bulging after 20 seconds, he took the rag out,” Wolf said Drake told police.
    “His mouth was still bleeding for two weeks after that,” Wolf said.
    Drake also admitted to seeing one of his son's eyes hemorrhaging on Feb. 4 and the other eye bleeding some time later, Wolf said.
    At least a dozen family members and friends packed the tiny video arraignment courtroom in the basement of the county courthouse. They appeared grim after the judge’s ruling, filing out of the courtroom slowly, looking downward and speaking in hushed voices.
    Hays and Brandy Drake declined comment.