By Stephanie Boulos
SACRAMENTO, CA – Defendant Sekou Honablezh, here Friday in Sacramento County Superior Court after his 2019 conviction and 25 years to life sentence were reversed, was denied bail because the court’s concerns about public safety.
The defendant is being charged with two felony counts for attempting to rob two victims on a bike trail, threatening them with a knife for money and for weed.
Honablezh was convicted on both counts in 2019, but the appeals court reversed that conviction because one of the victims did not testify or come to the trial.
The count, in 2019, mistakenly allowed video footage to be admitted and decided the victim did not have to be present at trial.
However, the court of appeals deemed that the footage should not have been admitted, said Deputy District Attorney Emilee Divinagracia.
The district attorney stressed that the defendant should not be released for the safety of the community, considering this very case occurred while Defendant Honablezh was on probation for previous cases.
Divinagracia argued that “this type of person is a huge danger to the community….no bail is appropriate for this case, and if it was it would be around $2 million if my calculations were correct.”
Assistant Public Defender Emily Gannon countered by saying that the defendant would be able to stay at his mother’s house under GPS tracking and has a job available for him.
The PD requested that if bail is set, it be set at $50,000 so that the defendant would be able to meet it.
While the DDA was answering Judge Timothy Frawley’s questions about the defendant’s history for showing up to court appearances, she and the PD were involved in a major disagreement about the defendant’s prior convictions and history in prison.
Ultimately, after hearing out both the district attorney and the public defender, Judge Frawley stated that despite no history of failing to appear, the court rules that bail is denied on the grounds that the defendant constitutes a danger to the community.
The defendant is ordered to appear back in court on Sept. 7 for trial.
