This story has been updated with comment from Gabrielle Nestande’s lawyer Perry Minton.
Emotions ran high this morning at a routine pretrial court setting for Gabrielle Nestande, a former Capitol staffer accused of leaving the scene of a fatal accident in West Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood last year.
Nestande, at right, is free on bail and according to witnesses she was confronted prior to the hearing by a friend of Courtney Griffin, the 30-year-old woman who Nestande is accused of striking with her vehicle on Exposition Boulevard in May.
The man told Nestande that Griffin would have celebrated a birthday this week if not for Nestande’s actions, witnesses said.
Perry Minton, one of Nestande’s lawyers, said the man then told Nestande: “you are a vile human being.”
Minton said he then told the man to act like a gentleman.
Nestande continued into state District Judge Karen Sage’s courtroom in the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center downtown, where she cried while lawyers in the case met at the bench.
Nestande continued to cry as she left the courtroom a short time later and got on the elevator with her three lawyers — Roy Minton, Perry Minton and Samuel Bassett.
Minton explained in an email later in the day that in court he and the other lawyers “told the judge that although we do not begrudge the family’s passions about the loss of their daughter (as well as their friends), but we do not feel that Gabby deserves to be treated this manner.”
“Judge Sage agreed and said that she would not tolerate it,” Minton said.
Prosecutor Mary Farrington said that in addition to the incident outside court, lawyers discussed the ongoing discovery, or sharing of evidence with the defense, and the timing of the trial.
“We don’t condone that type of behavior,” Farrington said outside court. “Hopefully Courtney’s supporters realize that in a court of law they need to treat the defendant with respect.”
Griffin’s father, Bart Griffin, took the man who confronted Nestande aside after the court setting was over and told him that “we don’t need to do anything that appears to be harassing.”
“All we want is justice,” Griffin said.
Friends and family have remembered Griffin for her abiding love of animals and children; she was a nanny who had previously worked as a veterinary technician.
She was walking on Exposition Boulevard between Bridle Path and Bonnie Road when a vehicle struck her and fled the scene, police have said. Her body was found in a driveway about 5 a.m. on Friday, May 27.
A few hours later, an anonymous 911 caller reported spotting a black BMW 3 Series sedan with a broken windshield parked in a driveway in the 3100 block of Windsor Road, a half-mile from where Griffin’s body was found.
Authorities traced the sedan to Nestande, who had parked the car at the home of an acquaintance, police said.
“The damage was consistent with that of an auto/pedestrian collision,” stated a police affidavit charging Nestande. “There were pieces of clothing and skin tissue found in the cracks of the windshield.”
Police initially said they believed alcohol was involved but Nestande was indicted last year only on a charge of failure to stop and render aid, a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Nestande is the daughter of a prominent California politician who left her job in the Capitol office of state Rep. Wayne Christian after her arrest in the case. She currently lives in California and travels to Austin for court appearances.
Nestande’s lawyers have said that they don’t believe alcohol was the cause of the accident.
Bart Griffin said he suspects that Nestande was drunk that night and that is why she ran off the wide road and into the bike lane where his daughter had been walking. He also supsects that she fled because she was drunk.
Griffin said he hopes for additional charges to be filed against Nestande.
Asked by television news reporters for his reaction to Nestande crying, Griffin said: “I could care less if she cried or not. I mean, she took my daughter.”