Mallory P. Ewart will spend two days in the Clark County Jail and 28 days on a work crew for a car wash scam.
Ewart, 18, pleaded guilty Friday in Clark County District Court to theft in the third degree.
She helped organize a car wash advertised as a benefit for the family of Gordon Patterson, a Hudson’s Bay High School teacher killed Sept. 15 by Ewart’s boyfriend in a hit-and-run collision. Taped phone conversations between Ewart and her boyfriend, Antonio Cellestine, revealed that she took some of the car wash proceeds to put toward his bail.
“She took advantage of a grieving community,” said Assistant City Attorney Todd George.
Cellestine was sentenced Jan. 22 to five years in prison for vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run.
Defense attorney Charles Buckley said Ewart was entering a no-contest plea.
“She doesn’t believe she committed the crime, but if she went to trial she believes she would be convicted,” Buckley said.
Ewart, when it was her turn to talk, said she wished she could tell the whole story.
“Mr. Patterson was my teacher too,” she said. She said she never could have devised such a scheme. The scheme, however, was discussed with Cellestine in conversations that were recorded, as are all telephone calls placed by inmates.
“A lot of things were misunderstood and this whole thing has just been blown out of proportion,” Ewart said.
The 335-day balance of her 365-day sentence was deferred. If she stays out of trouble for two years, she can petition the court to have the misdemeanor, which was her first criminal offense, cleared from her record.
Buckley painted Cellestine as a player.
He said Cellestine was playing Ewart off Kelsey D. Curtis, who was sentenced in March to five days in custody for rendering second-degree criminal assistance in Patterson’s death. Curtis lied to police investigating the fatality about Cellestine’s whereabouts.
Ewart is pregnant with Cellestine’s child, Buckley said.
“Ms. Ewart has basically already been sentenced,” Buckley said.
Ewart, wearing a form-fitting top which emphasized her stomach, sniffled through her court appearance but her tears didn’t earn her sympathy from Judge Vernon Schreiber.
“You need to understand, 18 or not, you are an adult,” Schreiber said.
If it had been one of her parents who had been killed and someone did what she did, “it probably would have torn your heart out.”
People in the community were deeply hurt by her deception, Schreiber told her, ignoring her as she tried to interrupt him to say that she never contacted members of Patterson’s church, who went to the car wash.
Inmates know their phone conversations are taped and Cellestine knew he was setting her up for a fall, the judge said.
“And you were biting right into it.”
Ewart was ordered to pay $343 in fines and fees. Restitution to the Patterson family will be determined by Ewart’s probation officer but will be in the range of $500 to $600, Schreiber said.
Schreiber asked Ewart when she wanted to serve her time in jail. She picked next weekend, so he ordered her to surrender at 10 a.m. Friday, April 30. She’ll be released Sunday, May 2.
The judge offered a final piece of advice.
“And all I can say is, in the future, you need to think.”
Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4508 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.
