An 18-year-old Vancouver woman was sentenced Wednesday to five days in custody after admitting she misled officers investigating the hit-and-run death of a Hudson’s Bay High School teacher last year.
Kelsey D. Curtis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of second-degree criminal assistance. As part of the plea agreement, her conviction could be dropped in two years if she follows the terms of probation and doesn’t commit further crimes.
But if she does violate probation, she could face nearly a year more of jail time, Clark County Superior Court Judge John Wulle said.
The judge was clear he was giving her a break.
“These are one of those moments in life where you get another chance to choose what’s right,” Wulle told Curtis.
Curtis already served three days of the five-day sentence when taken into custody last September.
On Wednesday, Wulle allowed the remaining two days to be served on work crew.
Curtis was implicated in the Sept. 15 hit-and-run death of teacher Gordon Patterson after investigators found a taped jail conversation between her and defendant Antonio Cellestine afterward, said Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Jim David. In the tape, she admitted to lying to police about Cellestine’s whereabouts.
Patterson, 50, a popular technology teacher at Bay, was riding his bicycle in a bike lane on an uphill stretch of Northeast St. Johns Road just north of 41st Street when he was struck by a car at about 4 p.m. Sept. 15.
Curtis told investigators Cellestine had sold his Plymouth Breeze sedan earlier that day, and went so far as to throw the key to Cellestine’s car out a car window and into to a field to dissuade police from believing he still had possession of the car, David said.
Curtis was taken into custody Sept. 30 as an accomplice to the hit-and-run. David said Wednesday he held off formally charging her in case she was needed as a witness in Cellestine’s trial.
Cellestine was sentenced Jan. 22 to five years in prison for vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run.
Wednesday, Curtis’ attorney, Tom Phelan, described his client as an impressionable teen with no criminal record when she came “under the influence of Cellestine’s persuasive abilities.”
“She’s a good kid who listened to a guy she shouldn’t have,” he said.
After hearing her attorney speak on her behalf, Curtis said she wanted to add a few words.
“I think Antonio manipulated me,” she said. “And I want him out of my life.”
