Columbia, MO

A 53-year-old Columbia man was arrested Saturday on suspicion of his 11th driving while intoxicated infraction.

Boone County sheriff’s deputies arrested the man near Route B and Oakland Church Road about 5:15 p.m., according to a sheriff’s department news release. Deputies said the suspect was operating a vehicle with a revoked license, and after sobriety tests, he was arrested on suspicion of DWI.

The man’s driving record shows he has received 10 previous DWI convictions and 12 convictions for driving with a revoked license, the sheriff’s department said. He is in the Boone County Jail on $14,500 bond.

Although online court records do not include all 10 of the man’s previous DWI convictions, his drinking problems date back at least 24 years. He was charged as a persistent offender on Oct. 23, 1985, and was issued a five-year sentence, which was suspended in exchange for probation.

To be charged as a persistent offender, the man would have pleaded guilty or been found guilty of two or more DWIs within 10 years before his October 1985 arrest or pleaded guilty or have been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault or assault of a law enforcement officer along with one previous DWI conviction.

He also was convicted of DWI in 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2001, according to online court documents. In December 2008, the man filed a petition for a hearing in Boone County Circuit Court concerning another DWI arrest not noted in court documents. He claimed he did not refuse to take a chemical test and therefore was not arrested legally. He later requested the charge be dismissed.

The man also has been convicted of forgery and passing bad checks and has been sentenced to several years in prison, much of which has been served on probation. In 1995 and 2001, he was ordered to substance abuse treatment programs.

Felony DWI Criminal Defense Attorney – Columbia, MO

Columbia, MO

A Columbia man was arrested this weekend for what the Boone County Sheriff’s Department said is his seventh driving while intoxicated infraction.

Jeremy R. Gibbs, 27, of 1659 Wagon Trail Road was arrested on suspicion of felony DWI at 2:46 a.m. Saturday on Grindstone Parkway near Rock Quarry Road, Boone County sheriff’s Detective Tom O’Sullivan said. Deputies noticed Gibbs driving erratically while eastbound on Grindstone Parkway and issued a field sobriety test, he said.

Gibbs failed the sobriety test, O’Sullivan said, and he refused to take a chemical test.

Saturday’s DWI arrest was Gibbs’ second of 2009. He also had two arrests in 2008, one in 2006 and a pair in 2001. He was sentenced to two jail terms totaling 150 days for DWI-related offenses, according to court records. O’Sullivan was unaware of other previous sentencings.

“At what point does this guy become a serious threat to the community?” O’Sullivan said. “Seven DWI arrests in eight years. What is it going to take to stop this guy?”

DWI Lawyers – Columbia, MO

St. Charles, MO

A St. Charles County man was charged this afternoon with involuntary manslaughter and assault while driving while intoxicated for a head-on crash that killed a Defiance woman in January.

Steven A. Hicks, 22, of the 1400 block of Stone Creek Valley near O’Fallon, Mo., was the driver of a pickup that collided with a car driven by Diane Fulkerson, 55, on Jan. 19. Fulkerson died, and Peter Adams, a passenger in her car, was injured.

Police said Hicks was eastbound on Highway DD near Diehr Road, when his truck veered off the road, then crossed into the westbound lane in the path of Fulkerson’s car.

Police said Hicks’ blood-alcohol level was .225 percent, nearly three times the limit at which Missouri drivers are presumed drunk.

The Missouri Highway Patrol investigated the crash.

St. Charles, MO DWI Criminal Defense Attorneys

Clayton, MO

Criminal charges were filed Tuesday against Sunset Hills police Officer Christine L. Miller, ending weeks of speculation about a car crash that killed four people and raised questions about whether a cop was getting a break from the justice system.

Miller faces four counts of first-`degree involuntary manslaughter and one count of second-degree assault for an early morning crash on March 21.

Her car was heading the wrong way on Dougherty Ferry Road in Des Peres when it collided with another car turning right off Des Peres Road.

About three hours after the crash, at 4:35 a.m., Miller’s blood-alcohol content was still twice above the legal limit — measuring 0.169, said St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch.

“This involves an individual who went way beyond the limit, and it was met with tragic results,” he said.

McCulloch, who called a news conference to announce the charges, quickly faced questions about whether Miller was being treated differently because she is a police officer.

“Certainly we expect more out of” officers, McCulloch said. “But from a legal standpoint, they are not held to a higher or a lower standard. They are held to the same standard as anyone else.”

McCulloch said Miller was drinking with friends that night but declined to provide details.

He described the crash, which was nearly head-on, as a “horrific collision.”

“It was just an incredible impact,” he said.

The charges announced Tuesday came nearly three months after the crash. The Missouri Highway Patrol, which investigated the crash, and McCulloch’s office have faced criticism as weeks passed without action against Miller.

McCulloch said the Highway Patrol’s report took time to put together because of reconstruction calculations and because there were no eyewitnesses.

Miller, 41, was arrested Tuesday morning at her Kirkwood home. She was then taken to St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where doctors deemed her fit for confinement, and booked into the St. Louis County Jail.

Bail was set at $200,000. But because Miller continues to have medical issues from injuries she sustained in the crash, she was outfitted with an ankle bracelet and released to home confinement, McCulloch said.

Miller can leave her house only for medical appointments. She suffered severe head injuries in the crash, the prosecutor said, but is fit to go through court proceedings.

Scott Rosenblum, Miller’s attorney, said his client is able to use a walker but also needs a wheelchair. Family members are helping to care for her, and she continues to deal with head and neurological injuries, Rosenblum said.

He also said people should not jump to conclusions about his client.

“It’s unfortunate that anyone would presume anything at all without knowing all of the circumstances and facts about the situation,” Rosenblum said.

Miller, a Sunset Hills patrol officer with a dozen years on the force, was suspended without pay as a result of the charges, according to a statement from the department. Police Chief William LaGrand could not be reached for comment.

In the Highway Patrol’s 46-page accident reconstruction report, investigators say Miller was driving the wrong way on Dougherty Ferry, but they found no evidence she was speeding.

The accident happened at about 1:45 a.m. on a clear, dry night, according to the report. Miller’s silver 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse was heading east in the westbound lanes of Dougherty Ferry. She faced a flashing yellow light. A red 1997 Honda Accord was turning right from Des Peres onto Dougherty Ferry. The Honda barely made the turn when it collided with the Eclipse, according to the report.

Four passengers in the Honda were killed: Anusha Anumolu, 23, of Charleston, Ill.; Satya Subhakar Chinta, 25, of Aurora, Ill., Anita Lakshmi Veerapaneni, 23, of Charleston, Ill.; and Priya Muppavarapu, 22, of Charleston, Ill.

The three Charleston, Ill., women were working toward master’s degrees in information technology at Eastern Illinois University.

Nitesh Adusumilli, 27, of Ballwin, the driver of the Honda, was severely injured in the crash but recently returned to work.

After hearing of McCulloch’s announcement, Adusumilli’s attorney, Stephen Schultz, said, “Those were the charges I would have expected to be brought.”

Schultz said his client does not want to talk about the criminal charges, but “I suspect there is some measure of relief now.”

Suren Pathuri, president of the Telugu Association of St. Louis, said he called two of the victims’ parents in India to notify them of the charges. Telugu is a language found mostly in an eastern state of India, which Adusumilli and the four victims all called home.

The parents “are really broken” by the loss of their children, Pathuri said. As time passed with no charges, many in the Telugu community here and in India became concerned that authorities “were trying to protect the officer or dilute the case,” he said.

But news of the criminal charges changed that.

“We are confident in the legal system,” Pathuri said. And the parents “were very happy to see justice coming their way.”

St. Louis, MO

The St. Louis County prosecutor wants to know why repeat DUI offender Newton M. Keene twice escaped potential felony charges that could have imprisoned him before his wrong-way car killed three people near Edwardsville last week.

It’s not certain that Keene would have gone to prison, Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch said in response to a reporter’s questions. But he said, “You’d certainly expect that a conviction on either one of them would put him in jail for a significant period of time.”

Hazelwood Police Chief Carl Wolf said he could not explain why one of his officers — later fired for unrelated reasons — did not pursue prosecution of Newton when he refused a breath test there in early 2006.

“All I can say is it got lost in the shuffle,” Wolf said Friday. “It should have never happened. … I’m upset because none of the supervisors followed up on it.”

Tracy Panus, spokeswoman for the St. Louis County police, said she had no explanation yet for why one of its officers did not charge Newton with DUI in 2007, even though a report shows he claimed he was “too drunk” to take a sobriety test.

Keene, 46, of Spanish Lake, was charged Thursday in Madison County with reckless homicide and aggravated drunken driving. Earlier that day, his car, heading the wrong way on Illinois 255, crashed head-on into another carrying a family driving to St. Louis for a funeral. Two adults and a child were killed, and a second child was badly hurt.

In 2006, by the time Hazelwood police stopped Keene, he already had six previous drunken driving convictions, although — in another unexplained failure — his state driving record did not then reflect his most serious one.

Wolf, the Hazelwood chief, said the officer who stopped Keene on Jan. 19, 2006, noted his revoked license and record as a prior offender and indicated she would apply for charges with McCulloch’s office. But she never did.

“My biggest concern was why it wasn’t taken to the prosecuting attorney’s office within days after the arrest was made,” Wolf said.

Keene told the arresting officer he’d been drinking at a bar for 4 1/2 hours and, when asked the date, said it was Jan. 19, 1962, according to the officer’s report.

The oversight was not caught by department supervisors until August 2008. By that time, the officer had been fired for a variety of unrelated misconduct charges, Wolf said. The city prosecutor declined to take Keene’s DUI case to municipal court then because the main witness had been fired.

Wolf said the supervisor should have taken it to McCulloch for a state charge instead but acknowledged that success under the circumstances seemed unlikely.

“You asked me if I’m disappointed,” Wolf said. “Darn right, I’m disappointed.”

The fired officer, 31, could not be reached for comment Friday.

In the county case, on Feb. 1, 2007, Keene allegedly told an officer he was too drunk to be tested.

Panus said tickets for failure to drive on the right half of the roadway, a seat belt violation and operating a vehicle with a revoked license were amended to parking violations in county municipal court.

The arresting officer never sought a drunken driving charge in circuit court. Panus said police officials could not yet explain why. Officials who might have remembered the case were at a funeral on Friday, she said.

McCulloch said his office asked police departments to pursue charges against repeat offenders through his office instead of seeking ordinance violations in municipal court.

A felony DUI conviction in 2006 or 2007 would have been Keene’s second. After his first, in 2000 in St. Louis County, he was sentenced to five years in prison but was released on probation after serving 120 days. A second felony conviction would probably have triggered a long prison term, several officials said.

Keene was spotted going the wrong way southbound, and then the wrong way northbound, before the collision on Illinois 255 north of Interstate 270 shortly after 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

Tawanda Jackson, 32, en route to her grandmother’s funeral from Jackson’s new home in Tennessee, was killed. So were her son, Arnold “Jay” Jackson III, 9, and a friend, Jon L. Moss, 28, of Dellwood. Her daughter, Takia Jackson, 11, was reported in fair condition Saturday at a hospital.

Keene, also seriously hurt, had been driving alone.

Madison County State’s Attorney William Mudge said Friday that he would have thought that after Keene’s 2000 felony conviction in St. Louis County, “that any subsequent offenses would have been charged aggressively and subsequently prosecuted in that same fashion.”

Now Keene’s prosecution has become Mudge’s job.

Kansas City, MO

A Belton man with two previous drunken-driving convictions was charged Friday with second-degree murder and DWI in a July 12 alcohol-related fatality.

Authorities say Jeffrey D. Brewer, 32, was driving a vehicle that left eastbound Interstate 470 near U.S. 71 in south Kansas City and struck a streetlight support. A passenger in the car, Katherine M. Anderson, died at the scene.

According to the complaint, Brewer, who was treated for minor injuries, tested over the legal limit for alcohol and also tested positive for marijuana.

The couple had attended a concert earlier that evening.

Court records show Brewer was convicted twice of DWI in 2002.

Columbia, MO

A St. Charles man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with a vehicle crash that killed MU professor Charles D. Fulhage.

A man with the intials W.C.D., 33, was arrested Feb. 22, after he crashed into the back of Fulhage’s truck while driving westbound on Interstate 70 near mile marker 122.

Investigators determined the man was under the influence of marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs at the time of the crash, according to a probable cause statement from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

After searching the man’s truck, police discovered a generic form of Valium in his car. At the time of his arrest, the man was serving two years of supervised probation after pleading guilty in October to driving while intoxicated in St. Charles.

Several witnesses dialed 911 before the crash and reported the man was speeding and making abrupt lane changes.

Columbia, MO DWI lawywers

Kansas City, MO

Murder charges could be in store for a man charged with driving drunk, now that a 17-year-old high school senior has died.

The Wyandotte County Prosecutor said Saturday’s arrest of Eric Snitz may not be the first time he was arrested for DUI.

The prosecutor said if Snitz has two prior DUI convictions he could be charged with felony DUI instead of the misdeamor he now faces. More >>

Missouri drunk driving lawyers

December 11, 2007 (Columbia, MO)

Family delivers emotional testimony.

During an emotional courtroom hearing yesterday that included tearful testimony from the victim’s family, a Mexico, Mo., man was given the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for an April drunken driving crash that killed a University of Missouri-Rolla student. more >>

Missouri Felony DWI Lawyers

Lee’s Summit 18-year-old passenger in hospital with critical injuries

A Greenwood, Mo., teenager was allegedly drunk and speeding when the car he was driving crashed last month, leaving a Lee’s Summit teenager in critical condition.

The accident occurred in the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 2. According to the Lee’s Summit Police Department, a 19-year-old was driving a 1998 Honda Civic northbound on Forestpark when the vehicle struck the curb and left the roadway on the west side before striking a rock wall and overturning.

The front seat passenger, 18-year-old Roberto Suarez, of Lee’s Summit, was ejected during the crash and was later located 20 to 30 feet from the vehicle. Initial LSPD reports stated Suarez’s injuries were life-threatening. According to a LSPD report released Thursday, Suarez is still listed in critical condition in the ICU of a metro-area hospital.

Another passenger, 19-year-old also was ejected and suffered a concussion and a severe laceration to the head.

On Wednesday, police issued warrants for the driver for two counts of second-degree assault for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (DWI), resulting in injury. That offense is a Class C felony. The driver also was charged with leaving the scene of the crash, a Class D felony. More >>

Missouri DWI Attorney