LITTLE ROCK — The day Janet Huckabee was ticketed for careless and prohibited driving after a wreck on Interstate 30 involving three other vehicles, her attorney denied that the former Arkansas first lady was involved in the crash and said she would “contest the ticket in court.”
But on Thursday - the day of her scheduled trial on the violation - Huckabee took a different route, agreeing to pay a $100 fee to avoid trial.
In exchange, P ulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber agreed to “reserve judgment” on the violation and dismiss it if Huckabee does not have any more infractions in the next six months
The trooper who issued the ticket, John Blackmon, and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Tamara Deaver told Gruber they had no objection to the agreement, which prosecutors said is commonly offered to traffic violators with otherwise clean records.
“She wasn’t treated any differently than anyone else,” Deaver’s supervisor, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones, said.
Huckabee’s attorney, Kevin Crass of Little Rock, requested the deferred judgment Thursday as Huckabee stood before Gruber along with Blackmon and three other witnesses - the drivers of other vehicles involved in the crash - who would have testified for the prosecution had the trial gone forward.
Huckabee, 55, who now lives in Miramar Beach, Fla .,with her husband, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, paid the $100 “monitoring fee” before leaving the courthouse. She and Crass declined to comment on the agreement after the hearing. A spokesman for Mike Huckabee did not respond to a request for comment.
The accident happened the morning of Sept. 20 in the westbound lanes of Interstate 30, near the Interstate 630 interchange in Little Rock. According to a report by Blackmon, Janet Huckabee, driving a 2010 Subaru Outback, attempted to merge from the far right lane to the center lane before noticing another vehicle in the center lane.
Lauren DeCaporale, the driver of the other car, swerved to avoid a collision, and her vehicle, a Mazda Tribute, spun out of control, crashing into a GMC Suburban in the center lane, Blackmon wrote. The Suburban then struck a tractor-trailer that was entering the highway from I-630.
The Tribute, Suburban and tractor-trailer were each listed as having thousands of dollars of damage, but none of the drivers required medical treatment at a hospital.
In a statement issued the day of the accident, Crass said Janet Huckabee was “not actually involved in the accident, but witnessed it in her rearview mirror and stopped to render aid.” He added that she would contest the ticket in court.
But, in a statement submitted to the state police, DeCaporale, 26, of Little Rock said the former first lady was talking on a cell phone while attempting to merge and veered toward her vehicle “at minimum 3 times.”
Crass denied in his September statement that Janet Huckabee had been talking on a cell phone. He said that could be verified by cell-phone records and a passenger in her car. His statement and the accident report don’t name the passenger.
In her statement to the state police, Huckabee said she was preparing to change lanes when she “saw someone else doing the same thing.”
“I went back over to the original lane and out of the rearview mirror I saw the other car lose control of the vehicle and begin to hit other vehicles,” Huckabee wrote. She said she stopped immediately, called 911 and went to check on the people involved in the accident.
Blackmon said in his report that Huckabee admitted to merging into a lane where another vehicle was already driving before noticing the other vehicle. He cited her for careless and prohibited driving for “failing to maintain proper lookout.”
After Huckabee’s court appearance Thursday, Blackmon, 31, who has been a trooper more than five years, said he stood by his report but had no problem with the agreement allowing the charge to be dismissed.
The judge “didn’t say I was wrong,” Blackmon said. “Everybody was really respectful about saying I did the right thing.”
He added that Huckabee was “cordial” and that he was glad the case was resolved without a lot of “hoopla.”
“I’m glad it turned out the way it did,” Blackmon said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/21/2011