By Emma Phillips
SACRAMENTO – The good news for Cory Satnowski was that his sixth or fourth DUI—that’s in dispute—didn’t influence his bail. The bad news is his latest DUI was a violation of his domestic violence court order. His bail tripled.
Sacramento County Superior Court Dept. 60 significantly raised his bail—it’s now $300,000—after reviewing a past domestic violence case and new DUI (driving under the influence) case.
Judge Timothy M. Frawley sided with Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Maroun after hearing her arguments on last Thursday afternoon.
Maroun asked to address bail in both of Satnowski’s cases, which was currently set at $25,000 for a criminal threats felony and $50,000 for a felony DUI.
One of the main conditions of bail in Satnowski’s domestic violence case was that he abstain from alcohol. There was also a no-contact order in place, and Satnowski was discovered at the witness’ house while he was under the influence of alcohol.
The witness called the police when Satnowski arrived at her house under the influence and threatened to kill her. The defendant’s blood alcohol content was .15 percent.
Maroun also stated that this was the defendant’s sixth DUI, and asked bail to be set at schedule for five priors, making it $100,000. Defense Attorney Hubert Chen disagreed with Maroun and said he was only reading four previous DUIs on Satnowski’s record, saying he could only make out four convictions.
The two went back and forth, until deciding that the previous convictions did not necessarily impact the amount of bail as much as the violation of the conditions of Satnowski’s previous bail.
Maroun once again argued that a condition of the bail set for the felony domestic violence case was to abstain from alcohol, and the present felony DUI now made it inappropriate to set bail at the scheduled $25,000 for that case.
Judge Frawley agreed with the prosecutor, and increased the criminal threats case bail to $200,000 and the felony DUI bail to $100,000.
Court proceedings will resume for both cases next week on Nov. 19 at 1:35 p.m.
Emma Phillips is a third year Communication major with a double minor in Political Science and Computer Science at UC Davis. She is originally from Santa Ana, CA.
To sign up for our new newsletter – Everyday Injustice – https://tinyurl.com/yyultcf9
Support our work – to become a sustaining at $5 – $10- $25 per month hit the link:
