Columbia man arrest for drunk driving has 10 previous DWI convictions

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.

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7th DWI arrest for Columbia man

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?”

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday Front Page DWI Investigation

St. Louis, MO

"Repeat drunken drivers avoid felony DWI charges"

Michael O'Fallon is the kind of guy Missouri lawmakers meant to target when they passed a get-tough law on DWI.

Under the decades-old law, any arrest after two DWIs is supposed to be a felony, carrying a potential prison term.

But the Eureka man escaped felony charges on his third arrest.

And his fourth.

His fifth arrest came Aug. 3, after police said he swerved head-on into an SUV carrying a family on the way home from getting snow cones.

The crash sent a mother and daughter to the hospital, gave two kids nightmares and enraged a husband and stepfather. He learned that the man who nearly wiped out his family had evaded serious punishment for years.

"He should have never been on the road," said Andy Colombini. "Something's gotta be done. And it's not just us this has happened to."

A Post-Dispatch investigation has found that chronic offenders such as O'Fallon routinely avoid felony charges because of arcane laws, poor record-keeping, confused police, complicated court rulings and a justice system that is slow even when all its players do their jobs.

A computer analysis of Missouri data found that last year alone, authorities in the St. Louis area failed to file felony charges on at least a third of all drunken drivers who qualified for them. (Illinois would not provide complete data for analysis.)

The problem is particularly severe in St. Louis County, where in 2008, nearly half of the arrests reviewed have not resulted in felony charges.

The result: The most dangerous drunken drivers are getting breaks before they even get to court. The failures ensure they'll never face the penalties lawmakers have authorized.

Some chronic offenders get charged with misdemeanors or municipal ordinance violations

That's what happened to O'Fallon after his third and fourth arrests.

At least O'Fallon was charged with something. Sometimes, because of bureaucratic bungling, chronic drunken drivers are not charged at all.

Newton Keene had already been to prison for a fifth DWI, but police forgot to seek charges for two later arrests. Afterward, he slammed head-on into a subcompact car, killing three people.

The failures infuriate the loved ones left behind, including Karen Jackson, grandmother of one of the victims of Keene's crash in February.

"The judicial system is letting all these people just slip through like that, as if it's not serious," Jackson said. "But it is serious. … People are dying."

FAILING TO CHARGE

In nearly all DWI arrests — even for people with long arrest records — drivers are released from jail in a matter of hours.

For the first or second arrest, they are handed a ticket, much like a speeding ticket.

Usually, they are ordered to report in several weeks to one of the more than 100 municipal courts dotting the area. There they face municipal ordinance violations, which almost always lead to fines but no jail time.

Some first- or second-timers are directed to face misdemeanor DWI charges at county courthouses. Although considered a bit harsher than municipal cases, misdemeanor DWIs also rarely lead to jail time.

The third DWI is supposed to be handled differently — with a felony charge and potential prison time.

That's what the law says, anyway.

The reality is far different.

The newspaper analysis of Missouri data found that in St. Louis and six area counties, authorities failed to issue felony charges on 105 of the 275 arrests that qualified.

MANY PROBLEMS

The newspaper reviewed the 105 arrests that did not result in felony charges, and it found the biggest problem came in the first step of the charging process.

In nearly two-thirds of the cases, county prosecutors say, police didn't ask them to file felony charges.

To seek a felony, arresting officers must first figure out if the suspect has two prior DWI offenses that would qualify a new offense as a felony.

That's no easy task. It could involve an entire shift — or longer — trying to decipher sometimes incomplete computer records. For example, the state drivers license data omit a DWI plea agreement used routinely by the courts.

Even when officers can get a true list of all past convictions, not every conviction counts, such as cases tried by a municipal judge who isn't a licensed attorney.

Sometimes, because of new laws and court rulings, a case will count, then it won't, and then it will.

The state Supreme Court ruled in March 2008 that the Legislature did such a poor job of writing the DWI law that some types of DWI convictions couldn't count toward a felony charge. It took a year for the Legislature to fix the law.

Police, prosecutors and defense lawyers have had trouble keeping straight which past DWIs count.

When police or prosecutors do find two qualifying prior offenses, they need to prove it to a judge. That means getting courts to send certified copies of past convictions.

Sometimes the courts provide the paperwork but not the specific kind needed for a prior DWI to be usable.

Other times, the requests for copies are ignored, lost or never received — with little accountability.

In one case, St. Louis County prosecutors complained that they had waited for months for records from the county's municipal court. But the municipal court said it never got the request.

Nobody has pushed the issue, even though the offices of the court clerk are just across the street from prosecutors'.

During such waits, prosecutors often file misdemeanor charges before cases get too old to prosecute in the hope they get the records they need to eventually charge felonies.

But with prosecutors juggling cases, they can lose track of who is owed what paperwork.

"I will be the first to tell you, in some of these (cases), we sent the letters requesting the priors," said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. "We didn't get any response, and we haven't followed up on them in a period of time we should have."

TWO CHANCES, ZERO FELONIES

So people such as O'Fallon slip through the cracks.

The 33-year-old college teacher pleaded guilty to two DWIs in 2003, one from Pacific Municipal Court and the other from St. Louis County Circuit Court.

Both times he was found to have double the legal limit of alcohol in his system. Both times he was given a special kind of probation to keep the DWI off his driving record.

Three years later, a drunken O'Fallon ran his car off the road in Jefferson County. He tested at 2 1/2 times the legal alcohol limit.

But his third DWI didn't result in a felony charge.

Prosecutors said state databases didn't list Pacific's DWI. Even if they had, Pacific's DWI couldn't have counted because its municipal judge wasn't a licensed attorney.

So O'Fallon's third DWI was a misdemeanor.

And so was his fourth — for a different reason.

In that arrest, O'Fallon nearly sideswiped a car in Eureka in November. He refused testing but admitted he had had "too much" to drink, according to a police report. He also said he had three past DWIs.

But the officer, in checking O'Fallon's driving record, found only O'Fallon's third DWI, the 2006 Jefferson County case. O'Fallon's other qualifying DWI — the 2003 St. Louis County case — was listed in another police database the officer did not check.

So, again, O'Fallon escaped a felony charge. He pleaded guilty in July to a municipal violation for driving with an elevated blood-alcohol level. He was fined, with no jail time.

On Aug. 3 — less than a week after his fourth guilty plea — a drunken O'Fallon rounded a curve too fast in northern Jefferson County, police said.

His right tires slid onto the shoulder. He jerked the wheel to the left, and sent his pickup skidding across the center line.

Coming in the opposite direction was the Colombini family.

Andy and wife Jamie still remember barely being able to utter "Oh, my God!"

They remember the screams. The impact. The whiplash. The smoke billowing from the hood.

She can't forget the look O'Fallon gave her after the crash.

"This guy jumped out of his truck and just looked around and started smiling," she recalled.

"I knew he was drunk just by how he got out."

A highway patrol trooper agreed, arresting O'Fallon that night for DWI No. 5. He was released a few hours later.

THE PAIN, THE WAIT

On the one-month anniversary of the crash, Jamie Colombini hobbled to her couch in Fenton. A brace stretched over most of her right leg. Another brace enveloped her ankle. She has a back brace too, but it hurts too much to wear while sitting down, she said.

Doctors can't say for sure how much damage her neck, back and leg sustained, she said. She's in constant pain and expects she'll need back surgery.

Beside her on the couch was Andy, a firefighter-paramedic by trade. He's sidelined with a wrist brace to cover a gash from the collision, which sent his arm into the dashboard console. His back hurts, too, and he also may need surgery.

They worry about their children. The 16-year-old, Amanda, had a softball-sized bruise on her shoulder. She just got her license but is now too afraid to drive.

Zachary, 12, and Tyler, 10, struggle to sleep at night. Tyler wakes up screaming, sobbing and shaking from nightmares of oncoming headlights and rolling cars.

They hear their parents talk about how O'Fallon had been caught again and again for DWI.

"You have your child ask you: 'What's it going to take?'" Jamie Colombini said. "Would they finally have done something if we would have died?"

O'Fallon, through an e-mail, declined to comment. His longtime attorney, Jim Wahl, said O'Fallon admitted himself into an inpatient addiction treatment program after the crash.

"He told me that he realizes he has a problem and that he needs to deal with it, and that's what he's doing," Wahl said.

While O'Fallon gets treatment, the highway patrol is continuing its investigation. It commonly takes five to six weeks for arrest reports to be sent to prosecutors. With a backlog of cases at the prosecutor's office, the average case takes four weeks to review before prosecutors make a decision on charges.

After that — if prosecutors agree with police — O'Fallon could face his first felony DWI charge.

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22 year-old St. Charles man charged with DWI, involuntary manslaughter

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.

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Bad cop Christine Miller is charged in crash deaths

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."

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Digg Yahoo! Del.icio.us Facebook Reddit Drudge Google Fark logo Fark Stumble It! Police can't explain why felony DUI charges weren't sought

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.

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Murder charge filed in DWI wreck

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.

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DWI crash suspect charged with manslaughter

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.

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Repeat drunken driver may be charged with murder in fatal crash, whishes was dead

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 >>

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Pickup driver gets 15 years for DWI death

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 >>

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Teen faces felony charges in DWI crash

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 >>

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