A judge on Tuesday dismissed a witness tampering charge against the girlfriend of a man accused of killing two women in a hit-and-run incident in January on Vancouver Mall Drive. The decision was made after the only witness in the case allegedly changed her story.
The charge against Kalista Andino, 21, was dismissed without prejudice, which means the charge may be filed again if investigators find out new information.
Andino’s boyfriend, Brandon C. Smith, 28, is scheduled to be tried Aug. 18 on charges of two counts of vehicular homicide and one count each of vehicular assault, felony hit and run and tampering with physical evidence.
While o n their way home from a baby shower Jan. 19, Raisa Mosh, 45, and Irina Gardinant, 28, were killed at about 8 p.m. when Brandon Smith’s white 2007 Toyota Tacoma pickup struck them in a crosswalk at Northeast 72nd Avenue and Vancouver Mall Drive, according to court records. He allegedly drove away without calling 911 or stopping to help the victims. Mosh’s 12-year-old son also was injured in the collision and was treated and released from the hospital.
Both Senior Deputy Prosecutor Kasey Vu and Andino’s attorney, Megan Peyton, asked Clark County Superior Court Judge David Gregerson on Tuesday to order the dismissal of charges against Andino, though their arguments for the dismissal differed.
The probable cause affidavit — which was the basis for charging Andino — alleged that Andino tampered with a witness in her boyfriend’s vehicular homicide case by telling her cousin, Celeste Mady, “not to talk to the police.”
“That was the basis for everything we had that showed Kalista Andino was attempting to tamper with a witness,” Vu said.
During a recent interview, however, Mady — who was the only witness in the case against Andino — told Vu and Peyton that Andino actually said: “You don’t have to talk to police,” Vu said.
“She has essentially changed her story,” Vu said of Mady.
“There’s a difference in term and emphasis,” he said. “We now don’t have sufficient evidence to go forward.”
Peyton argued that the state never had enough evidence to convict Andino because Mady isn’t a witness in the case against Brandon Smith. Mady told Vancouver police investigators from the outset that she had no firsthand knowledge of the fatal collision or the events leading up to it, Peyton said.
In addition, Andino never took any actions that fit the legal description of tampering with a witness, Peyton said. For example, Andino never threatened, intimidated or attempted to bribe Mady to try to stop her from talking to police, she said.
Vu has said witnesses in the case, including Andino, were persistently uncooperative and slowed the investigation.
Witness tampering charges against Smith’s mother, Linda Diane Smith, are still pending. (Linda Smith is not the former 3rd District congresswoman of the same name.) She is accused of contacting at least two witnesses and telling them not to talk to police. Her trial is scheduled for July 7.
A break in the case came when detectives located and seized Brandon Smith’s white pickup with front-end damage from the Larkspur Place Apartments on Vancouver Mall Drive, where Smith lived with Andino and their then-5-month-old daughter.
Child Protective Services briefly took custody of their baby when Andino was arrested in January on the witness tampering charge. Andino was later released after posting $30,000 bail and regained custody of the child.
Both immigrants from Moldova, Mosh and Gardinant had met at a church in their native country and continued their friendship in the United States, according to their friends.
Mosh was a mother of four, and Gardinant was a Sunday school teacher and mother of a 2-year-old daughter.
