Early Release in Fatal Crash Case Defended : Justice: Sheriff’s Department says woman serving manslaughter sentence could have gone to shopping mall despite being on an electronic monitoring program.

Officials of the Sheriff’s Department conceded Tuesday that an 18-year-old woman convicted of manslaughter might have visited a shopping mall, thus violating her agreement to be electronically monitored. But they steadfastly defended their decision to release her after spending only 31 days in jail on a one-year sentence.

Meanwhile, representatives of the San Diego County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said they are considering a telephone and letter-writing campaign to register their outrage over the quick release of Lakeside resident Renee Reid, who killed Phillip Cramer last July while driving drunk.

Reid was incarcerated at the Las Colinas Jail for women in Santee from Jan. 17 to Feb. 18 after being convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence after ramming Cramer, a 34-year-old Santee resident. The victim, who was riding a bicycle on Blossom Valley Road in Lakeside, was knocked onto nearby Interstate 8 by the force of the impact.

Cramer, married 11 years and the father of a 6-year-old boy, was training for a bike race in Oregon when Reid’s Volkswagen beetle rounded a curve at 70 m.p.h.--30 m.p.h. over the speed limit--and hit him. Reed’s blood-alcohol level was nearly double the legal limit.

Lori Cramer learned of the early release of her husband’s killer moments after speaking about the experience to students at El Capitan High School in Lakeside. Both Reid and Phillip Cramer were graduates of the school. After Lori Cramer’s talk, a student told her of seeing Reid at a mall three weeks earlier.

Reid’s father, Frank, an investigator for the district attorney’s office, denied Monday that his daughter had visited the mall, saying she had met the terms of home surveillance “to a T.”

While Renee Reid had been ordered to leave her home only when visiting the doctor, Cmdr. Jim Decker, who oversees the Sheriff’s Department’s electronic surveillance program, said it is conceivable that she might have strayed without the department detecting it.

“Maybe she had a two-hour doctor’s appointment and it lasted only an hour,” he said. “Maybe she zipped over to the mall for 15 minutes. We’d never be able to tell, but that is certainly a violation.”

About 20 women, 19 men and 40 male juveniles, all considered “low-risk” offenders, are assigned to electronic surveillance, which requires the to wear an ID band equipped with a transmitter. The transmitter sends a continuous signal through the telephone line, which notifies the Sheriff’s or Probation Department when someone strays greater farther than a radius of 50 yards.

The signal is turned off when a participant in the program has a medical appointment or goes to work. They must have permission to leave.

Reid must see a doctor and undergo several surgeries to reconstruct her jaw, which was shattered in the accident in which Cramer died. Dan Greenblat, a Sheriff’s Department, spokesman said the “true motivation” in releasing Reid comes from a “medical management standpoint.”

The Sheriff’s Department, he said, could ill afford to have a deputy transport Reid to her many medical appointments. Releasing Reid also is an “honest attempt to manage the inmate population,” he said.

The county is under a court order to relieve overcrowding at each of its six jails although it does not exceed the court-ordered cap at Las Colinas.

Cmdr. Decker said he considers Reid at minimal risk of committing the same crime.

“As bad as drunken vehicular manslaughter is, and it is a violent crime, we know that when someone like that is sober, they won’t do it again,” he said. “They are not going to go out and purposely kill.”

Dick Ariessohn, the supervising counselor for inmates under the electronic surveillance program, said that “although it doesn’t look quite kosher” that Reid was released so early in her sentence, it costs the county nothing to have the woman treated by her own doctor rather than charging her medical services to the Sheriff’s Department.

Most of the 20 women under electronic monitoring, he said, were convicted of property crimes, drug possession, embezzling and other low-level crimes.

After checking with his staff, Ariessohn said Reid had taken no “unauthorized leaves” but he had not spoken with the student who reported seeing her at a mall. Bonnie Helander, a MADD volunteer coordinator, said Tuesday that she had located the student, who was willing to confirm the information but who wished to remain anonymous.

Another MADD representative, Paula Myers, said the organization’s six-member board probably will not meet until next month. In the meantime, she said, individual members might begin writing letters and telephoning elected officials to complain about the one-month jail term.

“We’re definitely outraged and supportive of Lori (Cramer),” Myers said. “The system has screwed her over again. We want to find out what happened and make sure it does not happen again. We know we can’t change the system. But we can raise public awareness.”

Following publication of the early release in The Times Tuesday, Cramer had been besieged by media interviews, including two talk shows in Los Angeles and two television stations in San Diego.

Cramer said she was grateful that her story was being told and although she wants Reid returned to jail, she does not believe it will ever happen.

“They say she’s not a threat to society but she was a threat to my husband,” Cramer said. “I hope she thinks about that every day of her life.”