Forty-six counts.
Douglas Trinkle, 53, is a Boulder City special education teacher accused of repeatedly fondling and raping a teenage girl starting in 2022 and continuing through March of this year.
Years of alleged abuse against a child who trusted him. A Las Vegas judge heard that, saw his bail set at $1 million dollars, and decided it was “excessive.”
When Trinkle was indicted, one judge got it right. Chief District Judge Jerry Wiese looked at those 46 counts, including sexual assault of a child, lewdness, and child abuse, and set bail at $1 million.
Good. That's a judge who read the room. Judge Jessica Peterson didn't.
Peterson slashed that bail to $250,000, saying she didn't want to impose “excessive” bail.
Excessive. That's the word she used for a man facing 46 counts of child sex crimes with DNA evidence against him.
If Trinkle can scrape together $25,000 for a bondsman, he could be home by the weekend. Meanwhile, his victim lives with what he did for the rest of her life.
The prosecution pushed back hard. Deputy District Attorney Michael Allmon said after the hearing he still believed $1 million was justified, pointing to the danger Trinkle poses and his flight risk.
He also told the court Trinkle was likely to be convicted based on DNA evidence and could spend the rest of his life in prison.
She had DNA evidence and a prosecutor telling her this guy's probably never getting out. She lowered it anyway.
The defense called Wiese's $1 million bail “staggering.”
You know what's actually staggering? Trinkle worked in Clark County schools since 2012, cycling through Cimarron-Memorial High School, Sierra Vista, Cheyenne, and Variety Elementary, with access to children the whole time. That's staggering.
A million-dollar bail doesn't seem extreme if you put in context.
Yes, bail is technically about making sure someone shows up to trial, and defense attorneys make that argument constantly. Sometimes it's valid.
But this is a man facing charges that could put him away for life, which means his incentive to run has never been higher. Peterson looked at all of that and said two-fifty is fine.
Nevada parents deserve better.
Every morning, families across the Las Vegas Valley drop their kids off at school, hug them goodbye, and trust the adults inside. They trust the system too.
Judge Wiese honored that trust. He saw what was in front of him and said no. One million dollars.
Judge Peterson looked at the same case and went easy on him.
That child will carry what happened to her for the rest of her life. There's no reduced sentence for that. Judge Peterson had one job in that courtroom, and she came up short.
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