The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office released additional video footage Tuesday from the night of Mayor Craig Lowe’s driving under the influence arrest.
The video, taken on a ASO dashboard camera March 21, includes dialogue between Lowe and ASO Deputy Jessica Rowland.
Her comments implied Lowe received special treatment because of his mayoral position and sparked controversy authorities and experts say is unfounded.
The video starts when Rowland and Deputy Lance Pallett arrived at the scene where Lowe crashed his 2005 Honda Civic into a road sign near the intersection of Northeast 156th Avenue and Northeast 21st Street.
Lowe told deputies he fell asleep at the wheel while driving to visit friends in La Crosse. He added that he had three beers earlier.
“I can tell by your eyes, you’ve had a lot more than three beers,” Rowland said. “It doesn’t really matter the amount that you’ve had now because when we came up to you, you were not operating the motor vehicle.”
She goes on to say, “We could go a whole other route with that, but because of the job you have, we’re not going to.”
Later in the video, she commented on the crash.
“You put us in a pretty bad situation here,” Rowland said. “You know, if you wreck a vehicle, we have to report it [to the Florida Highway Patrol].”
ASO Spokesman Art Forgey said Rowland didn’t violate any policies and followed protocol when she reported the crash to FHP.
“She did nothing wrong,” he said. “Her choice of words were not well in that situation, but did it ultimately change the outcome? Absolutely not.”
Rowland and Pallett are both relatively new deputies, Forgey said.
Rowland was hired in January 2012 and Pallett in September 2012.
More-seasoned deputies may have called FHP sooner, Forgey said.
However, Pallett and Rowland came to the right conclusion by eventually reporting the crash.
State Attorney Bill Cervone agreed.
“The bottom line is [Lowe] got arrested for DUI, and he got taken to jail,” Cervone said.
The Office of the State Attorney and Lowe entered into a deferred prosecution agreement Monday.
As part of the agreement, Lowe’s charges will be dropped if he completes a set of requirements under SAO’s DUI Intervention Program, Cervone said.
Since the program was initiated in 2007, about 200 people have successfully completed it, he said.
To be eligible for the program, defendants must meet a series of requirements such as no previous DUI arrests and a blood alcohol content of less than 0.20 at the time of the arrest, Cervone said.
Lowe had no criminal history before his arrest, and his BAC levels were reported to be .069 and .061 when he took Breathalyzer tests at the Alachua County Jail.
“When I saw that [Lowe] had been arrested,” Cervone said, “I assumed that he would probably qualify.”
Lowe’s lawyer, John Kearns, wrote a letter to Cervone March 26, requesting the agreement.
Within a week, the agreement was signed, which Cervone said is a standard processing time.
“We don’t dork around for months and months and have some resolution we could’ve had in the first couple weeks,” he said.
Robert Rush, a local defense attorney, said he’s dealt with numerous DUI cases, and many of his clients have gone through the program.
Considering the facts of Lowe’s arrest, Rush said, if Lowe weren’t the mayor, his case would’ve been handled the same way.
“It looked like a pretty routine treatment of somebody in his circumstances by the state attorney’s office,” Rush said.
In reference to Rowland’s comments on the ASO video, Rush said they’re ambiguous.
Because Rowland’s not speaking about the night, Forgey said her remarks may be up to interpretation.
“It’s something that we may never know the answer to,” he said.
Contact Kathryn Varn at kvarn@alligator.org.
