With their bond having been reset already this week, Judge Gerald Prill denied a request to lower the bond amounts of three men arrested in early July during a human trafficking sting.
Defense lawyers Kyle O’Mara and Michael Murawski requested “a more reasonable” bond amount on Wednesday, September 28, during an afternoon hearing, as their clients had had their bond raised on Monday to a $100,000 cash bond each, a fifth of the original bond amount they received when they were arrested on July 12 and ten times the amount District Court Judge David Herrington gave them at a hearing ten days later. (The $10,000 bond was also at 10%, which allowed the three men to post only $1,000 to be released back in July.)
The three men, Daniel Horetski, Kevin Manor and Jeremy Susalla, are charged on child sexually abusive activity, accosting a minor for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a crime, with two of those charges carrying 20 years in prison each if convicted.
The Huron Daily Tribune reports that O’Mara argued on Wednesday that the defendants did not pose flight risks, citing their community ties, jobs and lack of criminal history, claims he backed with letters of support from community members. O’Mara also pointed to the bond setting guidelines and argued that they favored a lower bond.
Despite expressing some worry that setting a higher bond could result in jury-tainting discussions in the community, Judge Prill insisted that public safety was too at risk to lower the amount, especially given the nature and intended targets of the charges brought, citing the guidelines back to the defense attorney to explain his reasons, ultimately keeping the $100,000 bond amount.
The three defendants are currently lodged at the Huron County Jail. The men are all accused of allegedly seeking sex with underage children, having been caught during the July 12 operation as ran by Sanilac, Tuscola and Huron County Sheriffs and their deputies, with Genesse County Chris Swanson and his GHOST team showing the officers the ropes for conducting their own human trafficking operations later on.
One of the men, Horetski, is a retired police officer from Arizona.
Susalla, who is represented by Murawaski, has his pretrial hearing scheduled for Monday, November 21, at 10:00 a.m., while Horetski and Manor, represented by O’Mara, will have pretrial hearings in February 2023, with trial being scheduled for March.
