WOODLAND — A Davis man who racked up repeated probation violations in an alcohol-related hit-and-run case was sentenced to state prison Tuesday, despite a pledge to seek treatment for his longtime substance-abuse issues.
“I’ve made a lot of bad choices,” admitted Brian Douglas Cassidy, who in July 2015 was granted probation, along with a suspended prison sentence, for leaving badly injured motorcyclist Nikolas Kostelny on a darkened roadway seven months before.
Cassidy, 60, told Yolo Superior Court Judge David Reed during a violation of probation hearing Tuesday that he had “made some changes in my life” since returning to jail last month, the result of a series of missteps including drug and alcohol possession, and failing to report to his probation officer.
“I have every intention of seeking an outpatient (drug) program (or) a residential program,” Cassidy said. “I don’t believe prison’s going to do me any good because I’ll just be locked down there.”
But for Reed and Deputy District Attorney Matt De Moura, it was too little, too late.
“He’s had every opportunity to succeed on probation, and chooses not to,” De Moura said. “His desires to get into a program are full of empty intentions.”
Reed agreed, noting that even with a prison sentence hanging over his head, Cassidy made a series of decisions that “put himself at risk.”
“The charge that he was convicted of showed that he was a danger to society, and he’s done things that set him up for being a continued danger to society,” Reed said. “I don’t conclude that Mr. Cassidy is a bad person, but I conclude that he’s not capable of following the conditions of probation.”
With that, Reed imposed the five-year, eight-month prison sentence he suspended last summer after Cassidy “pleaded to the sheet” — that is, admitted to all of the charges he faced in the hit-and-run case with the hope for leniency from the court.
Despite calling him a “marginal candidate for probation,” the Yolo County Probation Department agreed to give him a shot, and Reed followed the recommendation. Cassidy’s first violation occurred six months later.
Already dismayed by Cassidy’s initial grant of probation, Kostelny and his family were further stunned when, even after several probation-violation arrests, Cassidy was allowed to leave the jail on his own recognizance.
“It felt like we were being victimized all over again,” said Kathryn Litton, Kostelny’s mother, whose son had been riding his motorcycle on Chiles Road on Dec. 17, 2014, when Cassidy crossed into his lane and struck him head-on.
Kostelny, suffering from a gruesome arm injury that left a bone protruding from his skin, begged an intoxicated Cassidy to call 911, only to watch him drive away. The 21-year-old underwent multiple surgeries and skin grafts to repair the damage, leaving him unable to work his seasonal construction and firefighting jobs.
Police arrested Cassidy several weeks after the crash after locating his damaged vehicle in the Rancho Yolo mobile home park where he lived.
It was there that Cassidy’s troubles continued, with officers finding methamphetamine, heroin, drug pipes and open alcohol containers during routine probation searches in January, April and June of this year, according to testimony from Tuesday’s court hearing.
Forbidden from possessing alcohol or frequenting places where it’s sold, Cassidy purchased booze at the Quick Shop Market on East Eighth Street and Pole Line Road “every two, three, four days,” clerk Santosh Kumar said.
Testifying in his own defense, Cassidy had explanations for all of it. The alcohol he bought for a girlfriend because “I wanted to keep her,” he said. The heroin he pinched from a roommate’s nightstand to possibly sell for cash, while the methamphetamine belonged to another roommate he’d met during his prior jail stint.
“I tried to help him when he got out, give him a place to live,” Cassidy said. “He took over the trailer,” moving his girlfriend and two kids in as well.
As for standing up his probation officer, Cassidy said he had resigned himself to a future in prison and went to the Bay Area to say goodbye to his family rather than make his court-ordered appointment.
“Mr. Cassidy doesn’t have the backbone to prevent certain shady individuals from taking over his residence over and over again,” Deputy Public Defender Dean Johansson, Cassidy’s attorney, said while arguing for court-supervised drug treatment instead of prison time. “A more controlled environment is really what Mr. Cassidy needs.”
For Reed, however, another break was out of the question. Reached by phone afterward, Litton expressed elation at the news.
“I feel a sense of relief that this man is not going to be allowed to do this to another family,” she said. “That kind of person, that blames others, is not going to change.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene