Tonya Harding will face trial for drunken driving
Published 9:00 pm Monday, June 3, 2002
VANCOUVER — Tonya Harding’s drunken-driving charge will go to trial on Aug. 20, and a conviction could mean the first significant jail time of the former Olympian’s troubled life.
Harding, 31, was driving her 1977 Dodge pickup on the early morning of April 20 when it veered off the road and crashed into a ditch. Neither Harding nor her 23-year-old male passenger was hurt.
Harding claimed the power steering went out on the truck, but she failed a field sobriety test administered by a sheriff’s deputy, and her blood-alcohol level was measured at .16 percent — twice the legal limit in Washington.
At the time of the incident, Harding was still on probation from an assault on her boyfriend two years ago.
Tacoma
Man attacks two 7-year-old girls: Police are searching for a man they believe responsible for an attack Monday on two 7-year-old girls. The man grabbed the girls on a trail in Franklin Park, next to Franklin Elementary, police spokesman Jim Mattheis said. One girl was able to get away, but the other was sexually assaulted, Mattheis said. Some of the girl’s clothing was removed and she was touched through her clothing, he said. The mother of one of the girls had been walking with them but couldn’t go through the park trail because she had a stroller, Mattheis said. When the girls didn’t meet her on the other side, she started calling for them and apparently scared the attacker away.
Seattle
Man gets five years for vehicular homicide: A man who pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide has been sentenced to more than five years in prison. Morial Desmond McDowell, 30, formerly of Gig Harbor, was fleeing from police at 95 mph with his pregnant wife Susie, 26, and their four children when their car crashed on a ramp between I-405 and northbound I-5 in Tukwila on Jan. 1, 2001. His wife and 6-year-old daughter Elaine died. The other children, ages 2 to 8, were injured but survived. McDowell’s blood alcohol level measured .21 percent. The legal limit is .08.
Olympia
State can deduct federal timber money from education aid: A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the state’s practice of deducting counties’ federal timber money from the amount the state contributes to school district budgets. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling came in a case brought by the Okanogan School District. The case challenged the way the state handles the money it receives for counties from federal timber sales on county land. Seventeen other school districts and Okanogan County joined the lawsuit. Each county that includes part of a national forest gets a share of the forest’s timber receipts each year. By state law, the money goes to the counties, divided 50-50 between roads and schools. But the amount of money sent to school districts — about $15 million per year statewide — is deducted from basic state education aid.
Chehalis
Councilman’s assault case ends in mistrial: A Mossyrock city councilman accused of assaulting the interim police chief and stealing city water and sewer services entered a modified guilty plea to lesser charges after his trial ended in a hung jury. Richard Guthrie, 68, entered a modified guilty plea Friday to attempted third-degree assault and attempted third-degree defrauding a public utility, both misdemeanors. As part of the same agreement, he also entered a modified guilty plea to a new felony charge of intimidating a witness.
From Herald news services
