The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office is working to extradite Steven Kunes of Santa Barbara, arrested in New Jersey last week after skipping court hearings in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in August to face charges of check forgery.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Brian Cota had predicted that a bail bondsman, keen on getting the $40,000 back that Kunes ran out on, would find him and was proven right, according to a Philadelphia news outlet.
Kunes is in custody in New Jersey, but Cota was unsure whether he was arrested on the warrant or in a new case.
“We have 30 days to bring him back, and it depends on a number of things when that will happen,” Cota told Noozhawk in an email. “The first step is to see if he will waive extradition. If now, we will start the extradition process; that will take some time to complete.”
Kunes faces charges of second-degree commercial burglary, intent to commit larceny and any felony, and felony counts after allegedly trying to pass bad checks at Montecito Bank & Trust. He was also arrested for a parole violation in March and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
After Kunes skipped two court hearings and there were reports that he left the state, Cota asked a Superior Court judge to increase the warrant bail amounts on Kunes so, if picked up, he couldn’t immediately post bail and disappear again.
Kunes claims to be a screenwriter but appears to have many holes in his self-proclaimed resume and has submitted plagiarized works to local publications, including Noozhawk, that were taken from Newsweek columnists.
His next court date will depend on when he is brought back from New Jersey.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.