SALISBURY, MD. – The Maryland State Police report the DUI and speeding arrest of Ray Perdue, a chicken flock family member, near the town made famous by the tender chicken peddler. The respected businessman and famous grandfather of one of the city’s newest DUI drivers was a tough man with a lead foot who killed one person while speeding. Now a family offspring is primed to pick up where the late chicken huckster left off.
Forbes sets the worth of the Perdue Family at over $2 billion making a driver for Ray Perdue an easy way to assure that he doesn’t kill one of their customers or himself while driving drunk.
Raymond Elwood Perdue, of 3851 Algonquin Trail in Snow Hill, Md., was arrested on Feb. 20, 2016, at 8:29 pm by Maryland State Trooper J. Meier while he was operating a 2010 Mercury at double the posted speed limit of 35 mph on Riverside Drive at South Blvd. The speeding fine is $290. Perdue likely won’t have to take out a loan from his bank to pay the fine.
A more agreeable fine of $90 awaits Perdue’s conviction on changing lanes when unsafe; a ticket awarded him on the same date and place. Running a red light was another item on the menu for the heir to the chicken fortune and now the heir to his well-known predecessor in the driving infraction record books, Frank Perdue.
Frank Perdue died in 2005 at the age of 84 after building his egg business into one of America’s largest poultry processers – Perdue Farms. Perdue turned the company over to his son, Jim Perdue, in 1991, and who still runs the family-owned firm.
Scene of Raymond Perdue DUI arrest by Maryland State Police on 022016
The late chicken chief garnered 37 separate traffic violations which The Washington Post reported resulted in 34 convictions, with most of them for speeding.
Like his famous family member, Ray Perdue was charged with speeding and ran a red light but unlike Frank Perdue, he has yet to kill someone.
Perdue Farms and the Perdue family are fundraisers and donors for most every public event, charity, and educational entity on the Eastern Shore while providing jobs for thousands in Delmarva and tens of thousands around the world.
Frank Perdue in 1984 Associated Press photo
On Aug. 16, 1989, The Post reported the following:
“(Frank) Perdue was also driving a rented car from New York in October 1974 when he had the accident that claimed the life of a 45-year-old Philadelphia chemist. The 1974 fatal car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which occurred while Perdue was on probation for motor vehicle offenses committed in his home state of Maryland, resulted in his arrest on Dec. 19, 1974, on an involuntary manslaughter charge. Conviction on such a charge is automatic grounds for losing driving privileges.
The charge was dismissed in May 1975, however, after prosecutors failed to present the case to a grand jury in time for trial. Details of the legal wrangling that followed the traffic accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike were made public for the first time recently in Southern Exposure magazine, published by the nonprofit Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, N.C.
The information appeared in an article accompanying a story about poor working conditions in the poultry industry. All criminal records about the manslaughter case were expunged several years ago at the request of Perdue’s attorneys, who included now-U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who was retained by Perdue after serving as a Philadelphia district attorney. But a Farmer’s Home Administration investigative report obtained by the magazine under the Freedom of Information Act says Perdue was arrested, charged with reckless homicide, and released on $500 bond. The report was prepared as part of a background check when Perdue applied for a federal loan.
According to a civil suit that Perdue later settled with the widow and four children of the victim, Harold V. Smith, the accident occurred when Perdue did not heed warning signs and red lights in a highway construction zone. The suit alleges he was trying to pass a string of slow-moving cars when the road suddenly narrowed into two-way traffic. Perdue, traveling the wrong way, hit Smith’s car head-on. Smith died at the scene from massive chest injuries, and Perdue suffered a broken nose, according to sources familiar with the incident.
But somewhere along the line, the criminal case was lost in the judicial bureaucracy and the state ran out of time to present it to a grand jury because Pennsylvania had enacted a new law requiring criminal trials to begin within 180 days of an arrest, the Farmers Home Administration report said. The case was dismissed, and Maryland officials never learned of the accident, which could have resulted in license revocation. Perdue also managed to avoid problems with the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles during the two-year period in the mid-1970s after the accident, when he accumulated nine points in violations. Records show, however, that after Perdue was called in for a disciplinary hearing — his third in eight years — he received three months of probation, an action akin to a warning. During this same period, a prosecutor in Worcester County withdrew a speeding ticket worth an additional two points after Perdue contested it in court. In dropping the charge, the prosecutor cited what he called Perdue’s satisfactory driving record, which contained no convictions in the six months after the alleged violation. Perdue actually had two outstanding violations, but they did not appear on his record because he had not yet paid the fines. MORE
From sbybiz.com / Salisbury Area Chamber of Commerce
This article appeared on Nov. 7, 2014, announcing that “Raymond Perdue of Snow Hill has joined the staff of First Shore Federal Savings & Loan Association as the controller.
Mr. Perdue graduated from Salisbury University with a major in accounting in 2008. He was formerly a staff accountant for PKS & Company in Salisbury and before that served an internship with Perdue Farms.
“We are most pleased to have Ray Perdue join our management team,” said Diane Turner, vice president and chief financial officer of First Shore. “We’re confident that he’ll do an outstanding job for First Shore as we expand and continue to serve our customers on the Lower Shore of Maryland and Delaware.”
Mr. Perdue assumes the office vacated by the promotion of Sue Vincent to the chief of internal auditing and Snow Hill branch manager.
First Shore is headquartered in Salisbury and has eight branches on Delmarva. A ninth branch, located in Millsboro, will open early in 2015.”
From LinkedIn:
Controller at First Shore Federal Savings and Loan
Salisbury, Maryland Accounting
Previous
PKS & Company, P.A., Perdue Farms
Education
Salisbury University – Perdue School of Business
From the Maryland State Police:
BK “E” DUI Arrests: 2/13/2016 through 2/26/2016
Dantoine T. Svainkier 32 yoa Salisbury, MD
Nicole M. Stokes 27 yoa Seaford, DE
Conaway Oleisha Trenoy 28 yoa Salisbury, MD
Ryan Thomas Haney 23 yoa unknown
Keturah Shubrick 27 yoa Camden, NJ
Raymond Elwood Perdue 29 yoa Snow Hill, MD
Josue Silva-Lopes 25 yoa Salisbury, MD
Wanda Michelle McGrady 45 yoa Georgetown, DE
Wayne Luther Morris Jr. 58 yoa Salisbury, MD
