DWI Hit Parade!

Photos courtesy of Fox 5 Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) – A Las Vegas stripper accused of driving under the influence during a deadly crash was ordered to trial.

Shauna Miller appeared in Las Vegas Justice Court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing.

She was charged with driving under the influence, resulting in death in connection to a wreck on March 23.

An arraignment in Clark County District Court was set for June 24.

Last month, a judge denied a motion filed by her attorneys to suppress a blood alcohol report from being entered as evidence.

According to police, Miller was behind the wheel of an H2 Hummer on Spring Mountain Road when she collided with a car at the intersection with Wynn Road.

Police said the early morning wreck killed James Joseph White, 33, and injured his 2-year-old son.

“His whole left side of his face was swollen. His eye was swollen shut. He had a skull fracture,” White’s fiancé, Rachel Sidor, said on the witness stand, describing her son’s injuries.

An arrest report said officers observed Miller’s eyes as glassy ….MORE

From Post Gazette

After the death of Lexa Cleland, there were many milestones.

First came the arrest of the drunken driver who killed her in December 2010,  then his sentencing 16 months later and, finally, this week, the $15.6 million  settlement with the South Side restaurant that served him the alcohol.

Mark and Nicole Cleland said Wednesday that they hoped the denouement of the  legal battle with Hofbrauhaus would give them “a sense of an end of a chapter”  in the death of their 7-year-old daughter ….MORE

From The Buffalo News

After walking  free this morning  following 239 days in jail, Dr. James G. Corasanti hopes to stay in Western New York.

He looks forward to reuniting with his wife and young son, and he intends to resume working as a physician.

“He hopes to stay here. He would like very much to stay here,” said Joel L. Daniels, one of the attorneys who defended Corasanti in his high-profile trial last year. “He has a lot of patients here. They very much would like him to stay and continue to take care of them.”

Corasanti was acquitted in Erie County Court on all felony charges related to the traffic death of an 18-year-old longboard skater but was found guilty of drunken driving.

A jury acquitted him of manslaughter, leaving the scene and evidence-tampering charges, rejecting the prosecution contention that while on his way home from a country club outing, Corasanti was texting, speeding and driving on the shoulder of Heim Road in Amherst when his car fatally struck Alexandria “Alix” Rice on July 8, 2011.

Jurors convicted him of DWI, even though they concluded that his drunkenness did not directly cause her death.

Corasanti, 57, of Getzville, was released today from the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden after serving two-thirds of his one-year jail sentence.

County Judge Sheila A. DiTullio sentenced    ….MORE

From Philly.com
Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner denied a motion to quash the third-degree murder charge against defendant John D. Leck, who is accused of killing Officer Brian Lorenzo on July 8 in the fiery crash on I-95 near the Cottman Avenue exit.
Michael K. Parlow, Leck’s attorney, filed the motion asking that the murder count – the most serious charge against his client – be thrown out.
Leck, 47, a debt collector from Levittown, was driving the wrong way shortly after 3 a.m., when his Audi A6 struck struck Lorenzo’s motorcycle head-on. The officer was thrown into the car’s windshield and then over the top of the car to the pavement.
Lorenzo, 48, a 23-year veteran cop, husband and father of three, was left dead on the highway. He had been headed home to the Northeast after his work shift.
Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Coelho….MORE
Widow of officer files lawsuit against bar that served John D. Leck too much booze and then let him drive away to kill

From The Evening Sun
(Nov. 6, 2012) — A Waynesboro man involved in a fatal three-vehicle crash in Franklin Township in September has been charged with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, according to court documents from Magisterial District Judge Mark Beauchat.
Brandon Michael Zirk, 27, of Waynesboro, was driving his 2004 Ford Explorer west on Route 30 on Sept. 14 around 9:30 p.m. when he hit a 2005 Suzuki Forenza, driven by Angela Rigby, head-on in the eastbound lane, according to charging documents. Police said Rigby, 33, of Fairfield, was found dead at the scene.
Police said Zirk’s vehicle also sideswiped a Kia Sportage, driven by Roger Keefer. Keefer’s vehicle was struck on the left side and came to rest on the eastbound shoulder. Keefer told police he exited his vehicle and attempted to assist the other people involved in the crash when he saw Rigby slumped over in her vehicle. ….MORE

From
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Texas -The family of a Montgomery County teenager who died in a car accident is suing two bars accused of serving a drunk driver.
Travis Saunders, 18, was one of two people who died in an accident on I-45 on June, 29.
“It’s pretty tough,” said David Dorrough, Saunders’ brother-in-law. “No one expected it to happen.”
Investigators said Nicole Backus drove her Ford F-150 the wrong way on June 29 while under the influence of alcohol. According to authorities, Backus slammed head-on into a Chevy Aveo, injuring a passenger and killing two others, one of whom was Saunders.
Saunder’s family described the teen as kind-hearted and loving.
“He was nice to everybody,” said Dorrough.”He never had a bad thing to say about anybody.”
The family’s lawsuit accuses two bars — On the Rox on Sawdust Road and Bikini’s on 1-45 — of over-serving the suspect before she drove that night.
The manager at Bikini’s denied a request to comment on the case.  ….MORE

Paula L. Larson

From Star Tribune
The driver charged in a collision in Anoka County that killed two people on a motorcycle had a blood-alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, according to a preliminary breath test cited in the criminal complaint.
Paula L. Larson, 42, of Bethel, was charged Tuesday in Anoka County District Court with two counts of criminal-vehicular homicide in the deaths of John A. Jordan, 48, and Patricia L. Kalla, 46.
The crash occurred before 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Viking Boulevard and Rendova Street NE. in East Bethel. The preliminary breath test measured Larson’s blood-alcohol content at 0.195 percent, according to the charges. The legal threshold in Minnesota is 0.08.
Larson at first told authorities, “No, I have not been drinking,” but soon after said she had been at EJ’s Bar and Bottle Shoppe — about 2 miles northeast of the collision site — and had two drinks before driving, the complaint said.
Deputies saw that Jordan and Kalla had suffered “severe head trauma,” according to the ….MORE

Michelle Dibler…went ahead with her wedding
From WTAE
KITTANNING, Pa. — Michelle Dibler was  arrested Friday by state police, nearly six months after the car crash that  killed her sister, who would have given a speech at her wedding.
Pennsylvania State Police  said Dibler’s lab results tested positive for marijuana and her blood-alcohol  level was above the legal limit of .08 percent.
She faces several charges,  including homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence and involuntary  manslaughter, and is being held in the Armstrong County Jail in lieu of a  $25,000 cash or property bond.
One day after the March 18  crash, Dibler told Channel 4 Action News reporter Janelle Hall that drug and  alcohol use did not cause the fatal wreck in the Kiski River. ….MORE

Cops Threatened in Letter
PARKS TOWNSHIP, Pa. —State  police say an Armstrong County police department has received a letter  threatening harm if charges are filed against Michelle Dibler, who was the  driver in a March 18 crash that killed her 26-year-old sister.   …..MORE

COPS SHOULDN’T HOLD UP BANKS EITHER….

Soon to be ex-officer Daniel Fumarola

From Times Union
TROY — A Rensselaer police officer was charged early Thursday with drunken driving after tests showed him to be nearly three times over the legal limit when he crashed his luxury car into a water tank at a construction site, police said
Daniel Fumarola, 42, of Wynantskill refused an alcohol breath test at the scene of the accident at 11:22 p.m. Wednesday at Pawling Avenue and Congress Street.
“He came in today and I took his badge, ID and gun,” Rensselaer Police Chief Rick Fusco said.
Fumarola has served as a city police officer for 13 years and is a former city Police Benevolent Association president.
He will be suspended without pay for 30 days …..MORE

Jeffrey Hirsch

From Long Island Newsday
A Bay Shoreman whose wife was killed when he hit another car while driving drunk was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail and 5 years’ probation
Jeffrey Hirsch, 57, pleaded guilty in July to second-degree vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated. He and his wife, Pauline, had just left the
Black Forest Brew Haus in East Farmingdale the evening of Jan. 24 when he crashed on Wellwood Avenue. His blood-alcohol content was 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit.
Prosecutors, the victims in the other  …..MORE