ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – There was a stunning twist in court Friday when a defendant who asked for a bond reduction ended up getting his bond doubled.
It involved a case first reported on July 30, when Scarlette Russell arrived home after a month in the hospital. She’s paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in her back in the Maryland Heights Westport Comfort Inn parking lot.
Police arrested her ex-boyfriend, 28-year-old Lashawn Wooten.
While Russell fights to walk again and has to be carried up to her second-floor apartment, defendant Wooten has asked for a break.
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Wooten’s defense attorney, Robert Taaffe, requested a St. Louis County judge to reduce the original $500,000 cash-only bond, saying the defendant can live with his mother in St. Charles and work in fast food. Taaffe also questioned if Russell was really paralyzed.
The St. Louis County assistant prosecutor pointed out Wooten is also charged in an earlier attack on Russell in St. Charles County. In that case, prosecutors allege Wooten slammed Russell to the ground. That’s on top of the defendant’s felony record for the 2013 robbery of a cab driver.
Assistant prosecutor Chris Klaverkamp told the judge Wooten’s bond should be increased, if anything, to $1 million. Then judge Heather Cunningham did just that, increasing his bond to $1 million with no option to pay 10%.
We broke the news to Russell, who was unable to make the hearing because of her rehab. She’s not only relieved about the decision, but she also just heard from someone who saw her on the previous FOX Files report about her apartment struggles and offered to rent her a ground-floor unit.
The prosecution also told the judge that stronger charges are coming. Klaverkamp said they’re preparing to take the case to a grand jury and add a charge of felon in possession of a firearm—to the four felonies Wooten currently faces in St. Louis County.
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