By Kelly Moran
SACRAMENTO – Defendant Justin Frank Bond—already on parole for a previous robbery conviction—had multiple charges in two cases facing him here at his preliminary hearing in Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday morning.
Bond is charged with possession of a controlled substance and fraudulent money, as well as misrepresenting his identity to an officer.
In a second case, Bond is charged with a DUI that caused bodily injury to others, driving with a suspended license, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Judge Sharon R. Lueras agreed to reduce Bond’s felony charge for the fraudulent money to a misdemeanor per Assistant Public Defender Joshua Kurtz’s motion, and denied Deputy District Attorney Brandon Jack’s request to enhance Bond’s DUI charge to include great bodily injury.
Folsom Police Officer Michael Austin told the court that he was dispatched to a Best Buy due to “a report of a suspicious subject, a previous reported theft subject, (who) had arrived towards the front of the store, that the loss prevention person recognized.”
Austin approached a vehicle outside the store that contained the defendant who, despite giving Austin a fake name, was correctly identified when other officers arrived.
Austin quickly discovered Bond was on searchable probation and searched Bond, finding drug paraphernalia consisting of “a piece of rolled up tin foil with black residue.” Austin also found “a rolled up piece of black tar-ey material” inside the tin foil, which Austin shared “based on my training experience, I recognized that as a piece of heroin.”
Along with the drug paraphernalia, Austin found “approximately 17 $100 bills that appeared to be fraudulent just based on the lack of security features; they appeared to just be pieces of paper copies.”
PD Kurtz asked the court to reduce his client’s felony charge for obtaining fraudulent money to a misdemeanor as he considered the bills to be “essentially Monopoly money.
“There’s large Chinese character letters on the left side, making them completely obviously counterfeit,” said Kurtz, and “in my opinion, while these were, I guess, counterfeit bills, they were certainly not the type that could ever be used in a real world environment for any purpose.”
Judge Lueras agreed with Kurtz, ruling that Bond’s charge would in fact be reduced to a misdemeanor.
“I don’t think they pass muster in any store,” said Judge Lueras, basing her decision to reduce the charge on “the obvious unprofessional work on these bills.”
Another officer testified later responding to a 911 call involving a car crash outside of a shopping center, noting that defendant Bond admitted to driving the car that hit one of the victims’ vehicles, and that Bond said, “I didn’t hit them that hard.” Bond also admitted that his license was suspended,
“He was sweating profusely, he was extremely nervous, his body movements were wild and exaggerated as he spoke … not typical behavior,” said the officer, noting “his jaw muscles were clenched tightly, I could see that he was biting down hard,” he continued, “another indication to me that he was under the influence of some kind of narcotic.”
Officer Jenna Marendt, who wrote the report for the car crash, testified next, stating that “there was significant damage to two of the three vehicles [involved].” One victim, who was directly rear ended by Bond, complained of a broken tooth and neck pain, but Judge Lueras did not consider chipped teeth to fall under the category of great bodily injury.
Judge Lueras allowed for Officer Brandon Monsoor to reveal that Bond told him he “suffered from an addiction to opioids that he has been trying to wean himself off of for the last eight months.”
The court ruled that the case should go to trial, as the second case, set for March 1. Parties agreed to “trail” (postpone) Bond’s first matter for the time being.
Kelly Moran is currently a senior at Santa Clara University, originally from Connecticut. She is majoring in English, with a focus on British Literature and Professional Writing, and is also minoring in Journalism.
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