Soft on Crime Outcome Story for the Week
Meet Dewey Lemar Ketakea, career criminal who loves soft on crime politicians. Ketakea's first adult criminal record is CM-1997-00237 filed July the 16th 1997 for transporting a loaded firearm and DUI while under the age of 21 years of age. Ketakea pleads guilty on one of the counts and receives 90 days in the county jail but it is suspended as long as he follows the rules and conditions of unsupervised probation and pays a $250.00 fine and a $25.00 victims compensation fee (VCA). The other count gets him six months in the county jail again suspended if he follows the rules and conditions of unsupervised parole and pays a $250.00 fine and a $50.00 VCA fee and does 50 hours of community service within six months and attends and completes a drug/alcohol assessment program. That is $575.00 plus the normal costs that usually will top $500.00 or more. Ketakea agrees to pay his fines off at a rate of $75.00 per month. So figure just over a thousand dollars to pay, 14 months, paid out by December of 1998. And as usual, Ketakea refuses to make the payments and the system finally notifies him in July of 200 that he is past due. No payments, so a second notice is mailed out in July of 2001. And again a notice is mailed out in April of 2002.
Finally, nearly three years after the first notice a bench warrant is issued in April of 2002 but it was November of 2004 before Ketakea was finally arrested for failing to pay his fines and his refusal to follow the terms of parole. Ketakea coughed up $500.00 in past due payments and agrees to pay the incarceration costs and costs of running him down and making him pay. His stay in jail added $256.47 to his bill, something he could have avoided and saved himself and the taxpayer the cost of keeping him locked up awaiting his hearing. He agrees to show up on November 23rd of 2004 for the costs hearing. Ketakea refuses to show up of course and by March of 2005 another bench warrant is issued.
Ketakea knows that little will happen to him if he doesn't pay and that cops aren't going to show up to arrest him and plays the odds that he won't come to the attention of the cops. The legal system, stern that it is, mails out another past due notice in December 2006 and issues another bench warrant. At that point the district court sort of gives up as it is April of 2010 before they take the time to mail out another past due notice. As usual the mailing is returned because Ketakea either gave a fake address or an address that he hasn't lived at in years. The court issues another bench warrant in April of 2010, adding to the two past warrants that were never acted upon. The record doesn't reflect any payments on the near $1500 in fines and costs since the original arrest.
Ketakea next brush with the law as CF-1998-1052 filed in June of 1998, for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon along with two other co defendants, and for possession of drugs, and third count for obstructing and delaying an officer. The A&B is dismissed in a plea deal it seems, the drug charge is pled down to a misdemeanor and Ketakea pleads guilty to a deferred sentence along with the obstruction charge. That is a sweet deal, felonies pled down to misdemeanors and deferred sentences to boot. Of course he refuses to appear in court at one point in July of 2000 and a bench warrant is issued.
Ketakea makes a deal and is supposed to appear in early March 2001 and doesn't show up. His bond is forfeited and a new bond of $10,000 is set or he can settle things by paying his past due fines and costs. No payment is recorded, another bench warrant is issued in late March of 2001. But the cops are too busy to run him down. Next entry is on October 2004, for refusal to appear, and another useless warrant is issued and no bond possible. In March of 2005 the same order is issued and a new bench warrant is added to the half dozen already in effect.
Finally in January of 2006 Ketakea has been picked up by the cops and he appears in court. Despite the threats of no bond he is set free on a personal recognizance bond and given a February court date to show up at a hearing. He is given a payment plan, $50.00 per month, ten months or $500.00, a fraction of what he owes on this one case alone. Ketakea actually pays $50.00 in February but nothing else after that and in December of 2006 he is mailed a notice about the $460.00 remaining payments that he has failed to pay. He refuses as usual to appear at a costs hearing on December 12th of 2006 and a bench warrant is issued. Another warrant is issued in August of 2007, bond set at $584.50, the amount of discounted fees and fines that he had agreed to pay but didn't. In September of 2011 another notice to pay was sent out. Nothing paid other than that $50.00, nothing done, 13 years of nothing done to pay his debt to society.
Ketakea's next adventure was CM-2000-00032, assault and battery/domestic abuse, in late April of 2000. He pleads No Contest, gets a one year suspended sentence and is to pay $125.00 in fines plus the usual court costs that would add up to around $400 or $500.00. He is put on probation this time rather than unsupervised probation and is ordered to attend a batter's program at North Care. He is supposed to start paying monthly on his fines and fees for this case but by July he is behind on paying and a violation report is filed so a motion to revoke the suspended sentence is filed and a bench warrant issued. Ketakea is finally arrested in May of 2001 and he agrees again to a payment plan in July of 2001.
By February of 2002 he has violated his parole again and a violation report is filed and another bench warrant issued. He is arrested a bit quicker this time, May of 2002 and he posts a $654.00 bond, most likely the amount that he is behind on his court payments. He once again agrees to a payment plan but by August he is sending messages through others that he will be late paying, then his girlfriend calls in promising to pay on November 22nd 2002 and pay an additional amount on December 6th. Ketakea is still behind $410.00 right after Christmas and by April 2004 his balance has increased due to filing fees for late payment and violation report, he now owes $481.00 on this crime.
By May of 2004 a girlfriend or female relative is calling in asking to do a payment plan but as Ketakea hasn't paid a dime since 2002 the court refused to fall for that one again and they ask for the entire amount. On June 14th 2004 another in a long line of bench warrants is issued and Ketakea is arrested again in September.
By July 2005 Ketakea racks up another felony, CF-2005-00348B, drug trafficking, and another misdemeanor for possession of drug paraphernalia. He earns 90 days in jail, a fine of $185.00 minus $150.00 for credit for time served.
Ketakea commits another felony in December of 2005, CF-2005-00626, methamphetamine possession, pleads not guilty initially to slow things down I suppose, then withdraws the plea in June of 2006. Sentenced to five years in prison but it is suspended in lieu of $500.00 in fines and another $925.00 in costs and fees. He is on probation but for the life of me with this guy's history how do they expect him to show up and pay a dime?
And he doesn't and in April of 2007 he earns another violation report and a motion to revoke the five year suspended sentence is filed. Another arrest warrant is issued. Ketakea has completed 100 hours of community service but by April of 2007 he is behind by $500.00 and is getting past due notices from the court. By the end of May he is promising to pay $250.00 and agree to yet another payment plan. The first of June Ketakea calls in and promises to show up on June 1st with the money. And doesn't of course so by August 2007 another bench warrant is issued and bond is set at $50,000.00 By September another motion to revoke his suspended sentence is filed along with another violation report in October of 2008 and Ketakea is arrested on October 10th of 2008.
Finally after over a decade of crime Ketakea is sentenced to five years in prison and ordered into a drug treatment program, with a total of $1465.36 owed in fines and fees for this crime at this point.
In August of 2010 Ketakea gets a parole hearing after about 18 months of state prison and agrees to yet another payment plan for past due fines and fees. There were no payments recorded after that point.
Ketakea's next adventure was CM-2006-00342, breaking and entering on May 11th 2006. He pleads no contest, gets a $350.00 fine plus the standard fees and incarceration costs. Of course he isn't paying and the next entry on the case is the notice of the parole hearing in April of 2010.
Once out of prison on parole in 2010 Ketakea gets right back in his game with CF-2011-5143, possession of meth with intent to distribute and possession of weed. He pleads guilty to both on August of 2012 and gets six years in prison with three years suspended. Around $615.00 in costs and fees and fines are added, not that he is going to pay. Ketakea is out about a year later and pays a small amount until March of 2015 when he goes back to old tricks.
Then in February of this year Ketakea is arrested again for trafficking Meth, possession of proceeds from drug trafficking, CF-2018-818. In April of this year he is arrested again for CF-2018-1477, trafficking Meth again, with a second count for trafficking Heroin, a third count for distributing Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, possession of weed with intent to distribute, and another count of possession of proceeds from drug trafficking. His co defendants were carrying weapons when committing felonies so they had charges added for that and Ketakea was carrying a firearm so he received another charge for being a felon with a gun. And a third set of felony charges were filed, CF-2018-1721, two counts of trafficking meth,
Notice the escalation from petty crimes into multiple felonies, violent crimes, all because the guy knew he could thumb his nose at the court. Time after time, chance after chance, the boy never learned because the lesson wasn't being taught. After 21 years of adult crime Ketakea is getting worse, not better. He might have spent three years in prison between the tenth and 21st year of his criminal career and keep in mind that these were only the crimes he was caught doing.
What does work to stop career criminals is truth in sentencing. A five year sentence would mean five years in prison, sentences would run back to back, not concurrently, and the court system would be enforcing payment plans. A good hard sentence back in 1997 might have set this man straight, a few years at hard labor would have made him not want to come back to a life of crime. From his past we will know that he will repeat the same mistakes after he is convicted on the 2018 felonies and that the soft on crime justices and prosecutors will repeat their mistakes too.
