In response to his March 21 driving under the influence arrest, Mayor Craig Lowe entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the state attorney’s office on Monday afternoon.
The agreement drops Lowe’s DUI charges and requires him to participate in a DUI intervention program, State Attorney Bill Cervone said in a statement.
Lowe can participate in the program because he doesn’t have major criminal or traffic history.
As part of the agreement, Lowe must donate $500 to nonprofit social services agency CDS Family & Behavioral Health Services, pay a $100 prosecution fine, perform 50 hours of community service, complete DUI school, complete an alcohol/substance abuse evaluation and subsequent treatment, give up his driver’s license for 14 days and plead guilty to reckless driving.
Cervone said this type of agreement allows the courts to address the case “without protracted litigation that does nothing but subject all involved to needless expenditures of time and resources.”
The agreement came about a week and a half after Lowe crashed his 2005 Honda Civic into a road sign near the intersection of Northeast 156th Avenue and Northeast 21st Street in northeastern Alachua County.
The Florida Highway Patrol arrested Lowe on DUI and property damage charges after he “performed poorly” on a field sobriety test after the crash. The Florida Highway Patrol reported Lowe’s blood alcohol levels to be .069 and .061 about four hours after the crash.
On Thursday, Lowe entered a formal written plea of not guilty.
Cervone said the state attorney’s office took Lowe’s blood alcohol content levels and his field sobriety test, both of which he said didn’t prove Lowe was too intoxicated to drive, into consideration when making the agreement.
“As in any court case, civil or criminal, both sides are usually well served by an agreed upon resolution that avoids a court fight,” Cervone said. “As to background issues, the Mayor has been treated exactly as anyone else would be in determining his qualifications for this program and any suggestion to the contrary is unfounded.”
Lowe, who is running for re-election against Ed Braddy in the April 16 mayoral runoff, issued a statement accepting responsibility and apologizing to residents.
“While my actions have disappointed many, the issues facing our city are greater than me as one person or this particular incident,” he wrote. “In order for our city to continue to progress, we must come together to secure our future.”
Contact Kathryn Varn at kvarn@alligator.org.
