Schuylkill County District Attorney Christine Holman testified Friday that she did not call the victim or police to make sure they agreed before telling her assistant to go ahead and sign a paper asking a judge to reduce bail for a Barnesville man accused of holding a gun to his girlfriend’s head last year.

As a result, Jed W. Dubuc, 25, got out of jail on $50,000 percentage bail instead of the $75,000 straight cash bail set by a district judge after he was charged with attempted criminal homicide and other charges.“Did I make a mistake? Yes,” Holman testified. “I take full responsibility.”Holman described the situation as a “miscommunication” between her and Deputy Assistant District Attorney John T. Fegley.Judge James Goodman described it as “misrepresentation,” and rescinded the bail reduction.“To be honest, that’s troubling. This is an attempted homicide case,” he said.He said he may refer the matter to the state Office of the Attorney General.Holman said she would turn the case over to that office to prosecute because of the “air of impropriety” now swirling about her office and the case.Sheriff’s deputies took Dubuc to the county prison, across the street from the courthouse, when the two-hour hearing ended.Dubuc’s mother, Jody, who was in the courtroom along with her son, said she would bail him out regardless.Dubuc, who is Holman’s husband’s third cousin, was charged after a Sept. 1, 2014 incident at the Mahanoy City home where he and his then-girlfriend, Dana Hannon, lived.At the time of the incident, police reported that Dubuc grabbed the woman and held the gun to her head. The 6-year-old walked into the room, and Dubuc pointed the gun at her and told her to get out. He told the child to stop crying, pointing the gun at the woman again and telling the child he would shoot her mother if she didn’t stop crying.Police testified Dubuc told them after his arrest that Holman was his aunt.Holman said she was unclear as to Dubuc’s relationship to her husband, but her husband explained it to her.“I am not the defendant’s aunt,” she said.Mahanoy City patrolman Thomas J. Rentschler testified that when he told Holman what Dubuc said, she called Dubuc “crazy.”How it unfoldedNo bail reduction hearing was held.Instead, Dubuc’s lawyer, Fred Fanelli, drew up a stipulation for the judge listing any conditions. The document needed to be signed by the district attorney’s office.Holman said the document was on her desk, but that she left to run errands.Fanelli came into the office on Sept. 3 and told Fegley the judge needed to know if the victim and police had agreed to the reduction.Fegley called Holman, and said she told him in a “lengthy and wordy answer” that she “believed the police and the victim were hesitant,” but because bail would be posted anyway and Dubuc was going to a rehab in Anaheim, California, they would agree.Fegley said he believed Holman meant the victim and police agreed to the reduction, so he signed that to the document.“What I said is that they shouldn’t have any reason to disagree,” Holman said. “It was an opportunity for a drug addict to get help free of charge.”“In hindsight, I should have called the judge and told him that,” she said. “I did not intend to mislead the court.”But that first document did not require Dubuc to go to rehab. It was a second document, filed several days later, that contained that condition.Goodman said his reduction order, granted Sept. 3, “was based on misrepresentation.”Goodman said he knew nothing of drug rehab plans when he signed that order.Police and victim testifyPolice officers and Hannon, questioned by First Assistant District Attorney Maria Casey, testified they were not contacted by the district attorney’s office about the bail reduction.Mahanoy City Police Chief John Kaczmarczyk testified that when contacted by someone from Holman’s office about Dubuc being released into rehab, he said he “strongly objected to that because I didn’t want him on the street,” but would not stand in the way if his officers agreed to it.Patrolmen Rentschler and Jonathan McHugh testified they were opposed to the reduction to get Dubuc into a 30-day rehab because, both said, rehabs don’t work, and they were concerned for Hannon’s safety.Casey questioned both about a supplemental report, attached to the criminal complaint, that described Dubuc’s relationship to Holman.McHugh, who wrote it, said the report was routine.Both officers said they were not contacted by Holman’s office. In fact, Rentschler said he called her office three times, leaving a voicemail once, but did not get a return call.Both said Holman never asked them to reduce the charges.Holman also testified that Hannon is her daughter’s friend, and that she has represented her in the past.Holman said she “felt sorry” for Hannon and Dubuc when she learned of the incident.Goodman suggested Holman gave the Dubuc family special treatment with the bail reduction.Holman said she agreed to the bail reduction because Dubuc’s parents were going to spend $5,200 on a bail bondsman. He would have been freed anyway, and the parents would have forfeited the money. Further, he was going straight to rehab across the country.“For Pete’s sake, who would object?” she said.When Hannon’s lawyer, Michael O’Pake, asked Holman why she didn’t consider the possibility of Dubuc harming Hannon, Holman said. Dubuc would be going directly to rehab in California.“How could that harm anyone?” she said.“Because he’s going to be coming back to Schuylkill County,” O’Pake shot back.O’Pake also called Hannon to testify. She said she was opposed to reduced bail “because of my children.”She said she learned Dubuc was free when she received a phone call from a state agency that informs victims of changes to defendant’s status.Rentschler told her about the reduction.Rentschler said he found out on Sept. 4 that Dubuc was free, and learned of the bail reduction on Sept. 5.Hannon said she has filed for a Protection From Abuse order, but has yet to have a hearing.Casey asked her O’Pake, who is Mahanoy City solicitor and a county public defender, came to represent her.Hannon said she asked him during a meeting about a custody case.She said she had know Dubuc was “related somehow” to Holman, and that she and Dubuc had talked at one time about his entering a rehab.Dubuc’s lawyer for the hearing, Arlen Day II, and Casey unsuccessfully challenged O’Pake’s standing to request the reversal of the reduction.