A woman accused of causing a car crash that killed two Connecticut librarians was handcuffed and taken back to jail today after a judge revoked her $200,000 bail.
Denver County Judge Andrew Armatas took the action after court testimony that an alcohol monitor Sandra Jacobson was wearing registered a “spike” over the weekend.
Although Jacobson’s attorney asserted that household cleaners could have been responsible for the reading, Armatas took the drastic action in the wake of a March 31 hearing that also showed repeated problems with the monitor, which measures alcohol secreted through the skin.
At that hearing, Armatas said if he saw any other problems, he would consider revoking Jacobson’s bail, and late this afternoon, he did just that.
He set her new bail at $250,000.
Armatas revoked Jacobson’s bail after ruling that enough evidence existed to take her to trial on multiple charges in the Jan. 28 crash on Peña Boulevard that killed Kate McClelland, 71, and Kathy Krasniewicz, 54.
At the time of the crash, according to court testimony today, Jacobson likely had a blood-alcohol level that was more than three times the legal limit for intoxication in Colorado.
A Denver police detective made that assertion based on three blood-alcohol tests conducted hours after the deadly crash.
Jacobson, who drove on to Denver International Airport after the wreck, faces multiple charges in the case, including vehicular homicide.
According to police and court records, a pickup driven by Jacobson went out of control and hit a Freedom cab, which skidded off the road and rolled over. McClelland and Krasniewicz, who were not wearing seat belts, were thrown from the cab and killed. The cab driver, Nejmudean Abdusalam, 27, was wearing a seat belt and was not seriously injured.
In testimony this afternoon, Denver police Detective Henry Gonzales said that a blood test conducted nearly 5½ hours after the crash showed that Jacobson had a blood-alcohol level of .164 — more than twice the limit at which a motorist is considered intoxicated under Colorado law. Two other blood draws, taken over the next two hours, showed blood-alcohol levels of .143 and .121.
Based on that, Gonzales testified, a scientific extrapolation conducted by the state health department showed that Jacobson would have had a blood-alcohol level of .274 at the time of the crash, which occurred at about 10:30 a.m.
Jacobson told investigators that she consumed cold medicine, both before and after the crash. She also said that she briefly lost control of the pickup after two dogs tried to jump over the seat and grab food, distracting her. However, Detective Tilo Voitel testified that Jacobson said she was not aware she had hit another vehicle.
Her attorney, Charles Elliott, raised the possibility that cold medicine consumed after the crash could have affected the blood-test results.
He also noted that seven Denver police officers who encountered Jacobson after she was detained made no mention in their reports of suspecting that she was intoxicated.
