Bail cut for one mom in school kidnap case

A North Las Vegas Justice Court judge reduced bail Wednesday for one of two women accused of kidnapping a first-grader to prove a point about lax school security.

Elaine Clermont stood shackled and defiant as Judge Stephen Dahl asked her if she understood the second-degree kidnapping charge against her.

"Sort of," she said. "I understand the words. I don't understand the relevance."

Clermont was arrested Sept. 8 on a first-degree kidnapping charge and held on $50,000 bail, but the charge was later reduced to second-degree kidnapping.

Dahl on Wednesday reduced bail to $20,000 to reflect the lesser charge, which carries a sentence of two to 15 years in prison.

Clermont's suspected accomplice and roommate, Laurinda Kay Drake, still faces first-degree kidnapping charges and $50,000 bail.

The two 40-year-old mothers seemed out of place among the hardened criminals and other men in blue jail suits Wednesday.

They have spent the past week and a half housed at the North Las Vegas Detention Center, and their children have remained in the care of relatives, according to Clermont's attorney, Mace Yampolsky.

According to a jail official, Drake was briefly placed on suicide watch after making comments that she wanted to hurt herself.

Drake is accused of taking a Mackey Elementary School boy to prove a point about lax security at the school, which her son also attends.

After dropping her son off at the school, near Commerce Street and Carey Avenue, she saw the first-grader walking away from the school, according to police. She told the boy to get into her car and then drove him to her house, which she shares with Clermont, police said.

After about two hours, the two women drove to the Clark County School District headquarters on West Sahara Avenue and called various media outlets along the way.

Yampolsky told Dahl on Wednesday that his client did not act with any criminal intent during the incident.

"If she's guilty of anything, it's bad judgment, your honor," he said.

Yampolsky asked the judge to release Clermont from jail and place her under supervision instead of keeping her on bail.

But Dahl expressed concern over the case, adding that "there's a certain amount of strangeness to the allegations."

"You don't prove there's problems by committing crimes," Dahl said.

Clermont, a perennial gadfly during School Board meetings, has no history of run-ins with authorities aside from a couple of citations this year and last for driving without registration and proof of insurance.

She appealed the latest citations to District Court, where a judge promptly denied her appeal.

Drake was charged with child abuse and neglect in 2003 but pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to Las Vegas police. The details of that case were not available.

The two women face a preliminary hearing on Oct. 1.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.