Norwalk Judge Postpones Bond Hearing for Tanya McDowell

Attorney Darnell D. Crosland asked for one thing above all else on Wednesday during a hearing in state Superior Court in Norwalk that was scheduled to take up his motion to reduce the bond for Tanya McDowell.

What he most wanted was to have the hearing actually take place that day or soon after. (It was the only chance McDowell had of seeing her boy off to school as he enters the first grade next week, he explained.)

Judge Maureen D. Dennis ruled otherwise, postponing the hearing to mid-September, and giving as her reason the objection from a prosecutor, Assistant State's Attorney Tiffany Lockshier, that there wasn't enough time to consider a legal brief Crosland had just brought to the courthouse that morning.

"I haven't had the time to review this lengthy packet," Lockshier said of the motion Crosland filed Wednesday morning. "I still don't really know what's in the motion, because I haven't had a chance to review it."

Offer to withdraw a brief

Crosland offered to withdraw the brief and rely only on his motion for bond reduction, which had been sent to prosecutors on Friday afternoon, and which he described as a "regular" bond-reduction motion, relying on legal arguments prosecutors had heard many times before.

"This is nothing new, which is why I'm a little bit baffled," Crosland said. Lockshier did not directly respond.

Dennis then said, "What I'm hearing from Attorney Lockshier is [...] that she's seeking more time. I don't see that as an unreasonable request."

Lockshier was filling in for Suzanne Vieux, the supervising assistant state's attorney, just as Dennis was filling in for Judge Bruce Hudock, who is on vacation. Hudock had set Wednesday's court date .

Dennis set a new court date for Sept. 13, although if a block of time opens up in the court schedule on a day when prisoners from McDowell's prison are coming to the courthouse, the bond hearing could happen then, she said.

In jail for months

At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Crosland said his client has been in jail for almost three months, unable to be with her child. "I'm just trying to do the best I can not to have this child further damaged," he said.

Crosland pointed out that the bond commissioner in the case was recommending that $50,000 bonds on four counts each be reduced to $15,000 each, for a total of $60,000. Crosland pointed out that in Bridgeport, where McDowell faces two very similar criminal charges related to the same Norwalk police investigation into drug dealing, bonds in each of two counts have been reduced from $15,000 each to $5,000 each.

If the bond commissioner's recommendations were followed, McDowell's total bonds would be reduced from $210,000 to $70,000.

Background

McDowell, who had been arrested on drug charges last year, was on charges that she stole from Norwalk taxpayers when she enrolled her child into kindergarten at .

Norwalk police accused McDowell of living in Bridgeport and lying to school officials in Norwalk by saying that her child actually lived in Norwalk. and living in Norwalk at least as much as anywhere else. McDowell has slept in a homeless shelter in Norwalk.

McDowell's case, which came to the attention to police and prosecutors after a Norwalk Housing Court official told them about the situation, was treated differently than most similar situations, in which families are not prosecuted.

In nearly all other cases in Norwalk, school officials find out that the child is from out of the district, and they decline to bring the matter to prosecutors or even ask the parents for money.

Support

McDowell's case became a cause for many earlier this year, and organized by the state NAACP was held in Norwalk. The rally attracted not only local NAACP speakers, but even the political activist Al Sharpton.

Some of that support had appeared to vanish after Norwalk police on drug-selling charges after undercover police and informants said they bought drugs from McDowell.

On Wednesday, before the court hearing, a group of four protesters stood in front of the courthouse holding placards and signs protesting McDowell's arrest and incarceration (see picture accompanying this article).

One of the protesters, Chris Hutchinson of Hartford, said their group had organized after Crosland spoke at a meeting in Hartford organized by socialists.

Hutchinson said the group thought it was unfair to McDowell to be charged with a crime for what she did in enrolling her son in Norwalk.

Although police and prosecutors allege that McDowell really lived in Bridgeport, Hutchinson and another protester, Marla Ludwig of West Hartford, said they thought she was homeless and didn't blame her for being desperate to get her child out of Bridgeport schools.

Related Topics: Darnell Crosland, Maureen Dennis, Tanya McDowell, and Tiffany Lockshier