By Khalida Sarwari
Don’t expect to see Robert Schiro out on the streets any time soon. The Saratoga businessman will remain behind bars through August as attorneys continue to review evidence in his latest DUI case.
Schiro, 74, appeared at the Hall of Justice in San Jose on Aug. 19 for a scheduled plea hearing wearing a dark green jumpsuit and a red bracelet similar to the other prisoners sitting in the two rows in front of him. For most of the duration of his appearance, he stared toward the front of the courtroom where Superior Court Judge David Cena was seated, occasionally breaking his gaze to turn and acknowledge a friend who’d come to see him. At one point, a bailiff warned Schiro’s friend about communicating with defendants from behind the glass wall separating visitors from the prisoners.
Schiro was there to answer to charges of DUI, hit-and-run causing property damage and driving without a license in connection with a June 25 arrest at his home in Saratoga. He’s also being charged with violating his probation.
Schiro’s attorney, Robert Lyons, drifted in and out of the courtroom, taking a seat next to his client a couple of times to discuss something with him before the same bailiff motioned for him to be quiet.
At one point, the bailiff handed Schiro a hearing aid, and seeing him fumble with it, took it back, reset it and handed it back to him. A few minutes later, Schiro flashed a thumbs up to the bailiff when he pointed to his device.
When Cena announced Schiro’s case, both Lyons and prosecutor Marina Mankaryous asked to approach the bench as Schiro stood and clasped his hands behind his back. After a nearly 10-minute chat with Cena, Lyons requested that the hearing be postponed to Sept. 2. Outside the courtroom, Mankaryous said attorneys will need the time to continue to review discovery. Lyons, who walked out of the Hall of Justice with Schiro’s visitor, wouldn’t confirm, saying only, “We’re not going to make a comment at this time.”
Schiro completed an 18-month prison sentence in January for driving drunk, only to find himself facing yet another legal proceeding in June. He’d served only half of his three-year prison term for a 2009 hit-and-run near Highway 9 that left the victim, 29-year-old Ashley Nelson, permanently disabled, but was released early for good behavior. However, as part of his sentence, Schiro was placed on probation and had his driver’s license revoked.
That allegedly didn’t stop him, while intoxicated, from climbing behind the wheel of his white Cadillac Escalade in the parking lot behind Casa de Cobre, where he’d dined the evening of June 25. Ignoring pleas from bystanders and restaurant employees to take a cab instead, Schiro is said to have rammed into a white Ford Explorer and then continued driving to his home, running over his wrought-iron gate. When deputies arrived at his house not long after, his front license plate remained entangled in the gate.
When Schiro answered the door, deputies say, he was barely able to maintain his balance. Slurring his words and with his eyes bloodshot and watery, Schiro turned and pointed inside his house and said his girlfriend had been the one driving. When deputies told him he’d been spotted by several witnesses, deputies said that Schiro told them, “Damn it, you got me,” and admitted that he’d been drinking and was not supposed to be driving, according to Stenderup.
After failing to complete field sobriety tests and being positively identified by a witness, Schiro was taken to the county jail in San Jose, where it looks like he’ll remain at least until Sept. 2.
His hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Dept. 42 at the Hall of Justice.
Schiro’s plea hearing postponed to Sept. 2–he remains in custody
