The best way to stay out of the court system is to not get there in the first place.
That maxim was illustrated in two unrelated Lamoille County court cases where the entry to the courthouse might as well have been a revolving door.
Kenneth Farrar, 37, of Morrisville, had seven counts of violating court-ordered conditions of release dropped, but was given a stiff sentence for driving under the influence for the fourth time.
Rachel Bregman, a homeless 21-year-old, had seven counts of the same dropped against her, but pleaded guilty to other misdemeanors.
Both Bregman and Farrar have issues with substance abuse, which contributed to their repeat offenses.
Drinking violations
Farrar pleaded guilty Sept. 9 to the felony DUI charge and was sentenced to serve one to three years, with the court recommending three months of home confinement.
He also pleaded guilty to driving after criminal license suspension and four counts of violating conditions of release.
Farrar was arrested Oct. 1, 2014, after he drove to Eden Central School to pick up his daughter, was picked up by police and given a sobriety test. He registered a 0.097 percent blood-alcohol content. He had a lifetime suspension on his driver’s license at the time of his arrest because of prior DUIs, and was under court order not to drink or use drugs.
Farrar has racked up 11 charges of violating those conditions in the past year; almost all stem from drinking. He had alcohol in his system during a number of his daily check-ins with police. During those check-ins, Farrar’s blood-alcohol level registered between 0.006 percent and 0.042 percent, under the 0.08 percent definition of intoxication. According to a blood-alcohol calculator, to have a 0.006 blood-alcohol level, a 150-pound male would have had one beer 75 minutes before the test.
But Farrar’s conditions state he can have no alcohol, and he was arrested each time.
The company she keeps
Similarly, Rachel Bregman violated her court-ordered conditions of release seven times in the past year by riding around with the 67-year-old man she allegedly punched last November — the incident that got her involved in the court system to begin with.
Bregman was arrested Nov. 10, 2014, after she allegedly punched Michael Fitzgerald, and told police he had stolen her cellphone. She was released on the condition that she stay away from Fitzgerald.
Instead, over the next 10 months, as recently as Aug. 13, she was arrested again and again after being seen with him. The state’s attorney’s office dropped those charges, all seven of them.
But Judge Dennis Pearson did have some punishment for her other arrests, including the simple assault that started it all. Even though it was just a misdemeanor, Pearson sentenced her Sept. 14 to serve one to three months.
Bregman also pleaded guilty to twice providing false information to a police officer, and to an additional charge of false pretenses.
All told, her sentence is 12 months to four years. But since Bregman’s charges are misdemeanors, both the prosecution and defense agreed she should be allowed to enroll in the Tapestry substance-abuse program instead of serving jail time.
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