Cumberland
Cumberland woman gets home confinement
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, February 13, 2008
PROVIDENCE — Kellie Woodbine, who has been out on bail since she was arraigned on drunken and reckless driving charges arising from a fatal car accident two years ago, has been ordered into home confinement.
The order, which Superior Court Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer issued from the bench yesterday, came after Pfeiffer conferred in chambers with Special Assistant Attorney General Stephen A. Regine, who has been seeking a guilty plea from Woodbine, and defense lawyer Steven D. DiLibero, who has been trying to keep her out of jail.
Regine said his position is that any plea agreement should entail prison time, given the serious nature of the charges and the consequences of the crime.
He said DiLibero has been holding out for probation or a suspended sentence, contending that Woodbine, who was severely burned in the accident, would die if she was placed behind bars.
The accident occurred at 12:40 a.m. Dec. 30, 2005, on the Pawtucket S-curve, between Exits 29 and 30 of Route 95, where Woodbine’s pickup truck struck a highway barrier, flew across the road, crashed into a bridge abutment, came to rest on the shoulder of the highway and burst into flames.
Woodbine’s passenger in the pickup truck, 16-year-old Samantha Marie Beaudette, of Pawtucket, was severely burned and died in Rhode Island Hospital two days after the crash.
Until yesterday, Woodbine, 29, of Cumberland, was free on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond. DiLibero wouldn’t confirm that he is seeking a plea agreement that would keep her out of prison.
“I haven’t gotten to the disposition yet,” he said outside court yesterday. “We’re still in pretrial negotiations.”
But he said she has already undergone multiple surgeries to repair injuries caused by the accident, and needs another two operations to survive.
The operations are expected to take place before June 10, when the case is scheduled for a pretrial conference. At that point, Regine said, “she’ll either plead guilty or we’ll go to trial.”
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