Jail work release program lets woman with 2 DUIs work in bar

ATLANTA — A Channel 2 Action News investigation into county work release programs found one local county allowed a DUI offender to work as a dancer in a strip club.
 
Hillary Boldt was first arrested after she crashed head-on into a tree in Gwinnett County. Witness Shilo Crane climbed into Boldt's SUV to help her before the ambulance arrived.
 
"I had thought for sure she was going to die or at least be permanently incapacitated," said Crane.
 
Five months later, Boldt was stopped again for drunken driving. And she said she even showed up for court high.
 
"I didn't think I was that bad, and now I can see looking back that I was that bad," Boldt told Channel 2 Action News in a jailhouse interview. 

After violating her probation, Boldt landed in jail. But when she wrote the judge and asked for work release, the judge granted it. 
 
According to Boldt's Facebook page, she started searching for work in June. Two weeks later, she announced she'd landed a job as a stripper at a bar called "The Pink Pony."
 
The Gwinnett Good Samaritan who tried to help Boldt after her first DUI was shocked when Channel 2 Action News told him. 
 
"This case is black and white. You have two DUIs, you're letting someone work in a bar. That's just stupid," Crane said.
 
Even Boldt seemed surprised when the Gwinnett County Corrections Department let her work in a bar.
 
"They act like they care about you, and they act like they want you to do so much better, and then they put you in situations like they put me in," Boldt said. "Of course I'd want to work in a bar. I have two DUIs."
 
"It's a legal business," Gwinnett County Corrections Department Capt. Scott Pickens told Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant. 
 
Under Gwinnett's rules, Boldt could have done a lot more than just work around alcohol. Diamant asked Pickens if a DUI offender on work release could be a bartender. 
 
"If it's a legal job, sure," Pickens said.
  
Diamant checked with metro Atlanta work release programs and could not find any that had specific rules against having DUI offenders work in bars. 
    
But Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren said it would never happen at his jail.
 
"Because what you're doing, you're putting them in a setting where you could set them up to fail," Warren said.
 
It's hard to track how often it happens because state law keeps inmates' work records secret.
 
"Where you've got one bad situation, chances are you've got plenty more that you don't know about," said State Rep. Rich Golick (R-Smyrna). 
 
Golick has sponsored DUI bills before, and says local governments need to tighten up their work release rules, or the General Assembly will do it for them.
 
"We should not have to legislate common sense," Golick said.
 
As for Hillary Boldt, she got kicked out of the program for drinking. She told Channel 2 she never drank on the job, but she did it twice riding to and from work. 
 
The first time, she said, a corrections officer told her to just sleep it off. The second time, court records show officers actually tested her. So Boldt is back in jail full-time.
 
"This is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, is being in here, because it's really opened my eyes. I have all this time to think," Boldt said.
 
The Gwinnett County Corrections Department told Diamant it will re-think its policies.
 
"After this interview, we'll sit down with the warden and the deputy warden and other members of the command staff, and we'll revisit this idea," Pickens said.

“The State opposed probation and recommended jail at Ms. Hillary Bold-Hall’s revocation hearing on April 17, 2014.  Based on her record, we did not believe her to be a good candidate for probation.  On May 27, 2014, her probation was revoked and she was ordered to serve the remainder of her sentence (588 days) at the Gwinnett County jail.  The State was not notified of her request and subsequent modification of her sentence on June 10, 2014, and we maintain that she was and is not a good candidate for the work release program.  We have confirmed that she was removed from the work release program on August 27, 2014 due to a positive screen and is presently housed at the jail as originally ordered.”

--Gwinnett County Solicitor’s Office

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