A Richardson Bay boater who doused a harbormaster with bear spray was placed on probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.
Kimberly Susan Slater was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Kevin Murphy in Marin County Superior Court. Murphy also ordered her to take an anger management class.
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Slater, 34, was convicted in March of misdemeanor charges of obstructing a peace officer and assault. The jury acquitted Slater of three felony charges that included resisting a peace officer and unlawfully using tear gas.
Slater faced a potential prison sentence of four years if she had been convicted of the felonies, according to her defense attorney, Charles Dresow.
“The court evaluated a very complex and emotional case, and gave a fair sentence,” Dresow said.
During the six-day trial, jurors heard testimony and reviewed video footage of the 2020 incident in which Slater confronted the Richardson Bay Regional Agency harbormaster, Curtis Havel, and sprayed the chemical at him when he visited her boat near Sausalito. Havel was delivering information about the agency’s plan to clear the bay of derelict vessels to comply with demands from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
Prosecutor Matthew Jacobs told jurors that Slater previously had a hostile encounter with Havel and she hid on her boat before the assault.
Dresow countered that Havel did not have proper law enforcement training and failed to announce his presence when he approached the boat. He also noted that his client contacted the Coast Guard and provided evidence to Marin County sheriff’s investigators.
Havel, a former county planner, became harbormaster in 2019 and resigned two years later. In a statement at the sentencing hearing, he recalled his anxiety about encountering Slater again. He said Slater remained unlawfully anchored at the bay during the five years before her trial.
“I feel angry, I feel hurt, I feel abandoned by a system I spent my career believing in,” Havel said.
During the sentencing, Jacobs said Slater never expressed remorse for her actions and posted video of the incident on social media.
Jacobs said Slater used social media to encourage others to resist the Richardson Bay Regional Agency and law enforcement authorities. He said several other boat residents violently resisted authorities after the Slater incident.
“She will not accept responsibility,” Jacobs said. “She is not remorseful. She has been the opposite of remorseful.”
He asked Murphy to impose a six-month jail sentence.
Murphy condemned Slater’s treatment of Havel and said there was no reason for her to assault him. He described the action as both criminal and sad.
“I don’t think any right-thinking person could see a justification for what happened,” he said.
Slater and Jacobs declined to comment after the sentencing.