STUART — A Palm City man, who was driving without a license when he was involved in a fatal traffic accident in 2000, was arrested Saturday morning for driving on a suspended license.

Charles E. McComas, 24, was stopped on the west side of the Palm City Bridge about 10 a.m. Saturday, after a Martin County deputy’s radar registered his vehicle travelling at 54 mph in a 35 mph zone. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A 54-year-old Port St. Lucie man faces DUI charges after allegedly laying down his motorcycle several times on the Crosstown Parkway Friday night, according to a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.

Roger Dale Syner, of the 200 block of Southwest Inwood Avenue, was arrested after 8 p.m. and charged with a traffic felony for DUI and a misdemeanor for refusing a breathalyzer test. It was the fourth DUI in Syner’s lifetime and third in 10 years, according to the affidavit.

A witness driving behind Syner watched him drop his motorcycle at least three times while he was speeding eastbound, according to the affidavit. He told officers he had just enough to drink.
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VERO BEACH — A 25-year-old New York woman faces seven driving-related charges, including child endangerment, after eluding law enforcement at high speeds for 10 miles on Interstate 95 early Tuesday afternoon, reports show.

Maria “Zion Christ” Roberts drove her white van in excess of 110 mph from northern St. Lucie County to Indian River County while going in and out of traffic and attempting U-turns.

Four miles south of Sebastian she crossed the median and sped north in the southbound lanes for several miles before sheriff’s deputies finally were able to puncture one of her tires and the car slammed into a guardrail.
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A six-member jury took only two hours to find Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird not guilty of DUI late Wednesday afternoon.

Baird, noticeably jubilant, sat with his attorney Bobby Guttridge as the court clerk read the verdict at 3:57 p.m. Baird then hugged his girlfriend and deferred comments to his attorney, before leaving the courthouse. (more…)

VERO BEACH — The DUI trial of County Administrator Joe Baird continues today with more defense witnesses testifying about his physical condition before his arrest at 10:25 p.m. May 16 in Vero Beach.

Baird “appeared perfectly normal to me” around 10 p.m., Baird’s long-time friend John Binkley testified Tuesday at the end of trial testimony for the day.

Testimony is expected to end today, possibly in time for the case to go to jurors for a decision.
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VERO BEACH — County Administrator Joe Baird was a victim of police “rush to judgment,” his defense attorney said in the opening arguments of his DUI case Tuesday.

Bobby Guttridge told jurors when Baird stepped out of his Jeep when it was stopped May 16, Baird was wearing a flowered Hawaiian lei around his neck. Because of that, police “never gave Baird the benefit of doubt.”

Baird was arrested after attending a community fundraiser in Wabasso at which Guttridge said Baird had two beers. But Assistant State Attorney David Dodd told jurors Baird failed all of the police roadside sobriety tests. Baird couldn’t stand on one leg, walk a straight line, count backwards or follow the movement of a pen with his eyes.

Guttridge blamed that on Baird having physical problems, including vertigo.

Dodd also said an officer found an alcoholic beverage spilled on the floorboard of Baird’s Jeep.

Prosecutors Tuesday morning are putting the arresting police officers on the stand to testify. Vero Beach Police Lt. Matt Harrelson is first. He stopped Baird at 10:26 p.m. May 16 near the Miracle Mile Plaza on 21st Street.

Harrelson testified he could smell alcohol when he was within 6 feet of Baird. Because of Baird’s appearance, he called in a DUI investigator.

By Elliott Jones

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Theresa Caputo of Stuart, in black, hugs another woman Wednesday at the scene of a memorial that was built along Cove Road near Stuart. Caputo, a mother of three, said her children all knew and grew up with those killed. (DEBORAH SILVER/Treasure Coast Newspapers)

A few teenagers in board shorts and T-shirts lifted their sunglasses just long enough to wipe away their tears and hug one another in the grass along Cove Road Wednesday afternoon as they stood above a swelling memorial site.

Amid her tears, a mother bent down, reached through the letters, flowers and mementos and clutched a golf ball in her hand.

Angela Coady said she knew one of her son Nick’s friends had put it there intending for it to stay, but when she saw it she decided she had to take it with her.

“The last time I saw him he was going to play golf. He was happy as a lark,” she said. “The next time I saw him, he was dead.”

Nick Coady, 18, and his friends — Christopher Harold Briglio, 18, and Connor William Graver, 16, — were all killed early Tuesday when the Jeep Grand Cherokee that Coady was driving slammed into the back of a John Deere truck and overturned.

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If there was fun to be had, Nick Coady, Chris Briglio and Connor Graver were likely involved.

They were the ones to call if you wanted to know where the party was or if you were looking for something to do, even on an otherwise boring summer night in Martin County. Once they got everyone to play musical chairs. Often, they were together.

Christopher Briglio

Connor Graver

Nicholas Coady

“Those guys, you couldn’t help but have fun around them. They always lived life to the fullest,” said James Young, 18, a classmate at South Fork High School in Stuart.

So there was laughter mixed in with the tears Tuesday as their former classmates and friends at South Fork gathered near the spot along Cove Road, south of Stuart, where the three lost their lives in what authorities are calling an alcohol-related crash.

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Nick, 18, of Stuart, Chris, 18, of Tequesta, and Connor, 16, of Hobe Sound, died at about 2 a.m. Tuesday after the SUV they were in slammed head-on into a John Deere front-end loader at a construction site at Cove Road and U.S. 1, said Lt. Chris Cribbs of the Florida Highway Patrol.

Chris and Connor, who friends say were “inseparable,” died at the scene. Neither were wearing seat belts, according to the police report. Nick, the driver, died later at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. He was wearing a seat belt.

Investigators also suspect Nick was speeding. The speed limit on Cove Road is 35 mph.

The driver of the John Deere, Pedro Perez-Espinosa, 25, of Okeechobee wasn’t hurt.

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Nicholas Coady
Christopher Briglio
Connor Graver

Construction crews were widening the road and installing drainage or sewage pipe at that intersection when the SUV, traveling eastbound, approached, Cribbs said. The loader had just dumped some dirt by the roadside and was backing off the road when the SUV struck. It hit the loader’s bucket, flipping the SUV, according to the police report. The crash destroyed the SUV.

There wasn’t much light in the area, he said, but crews said the front-end loader itself was well lit.

The crash closed Cove Road for hours as emergency workers cleared the wreckage.

A woman who answered the door at Nick’s house Tuesday said he was an “angel,” but said the family didn’t want to discuss the crash.

Chris’ grandmother, Helen Nekola, said the Briglios’ family members were gathering in Tequesta to mourn.

“He was a wonderful boy,” Nekola said by phone from Bethpage, N.Y. “We’re just trying to get around this.”

Classmates, who gathered at the site after the wreckage had been cleared, built a makeshift memorial for the trio. They left flowers, a football, a polo shirt and letters. They scrawled messages across a large poster as they might have a yearbook, covering it with signatures by mid-afternoon. And they talked about their friends. (more…)

VERO BEACH — Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird’s first public appearance in his DUI case came Wednesday in a court hearing that was quickly postponed at the request of defense and prosecution attorneys.

The attorneys said they needed more time to prepare their cases.

But Indian River County Judge David Morgan told the attorneys he intends to set the case for trial the week of Aug. 24.

Baird has pled not guilty to DUI and speeding charges and is asking for a jury trial.

Outside the courtroom, Baird, 52, declined comment on the advice of his attorney. He was accompanied by his girlfriend, Karen Deigl, president of the Indian River Senior Resource Association, who was there for moral support and to drive him to the hearing, Baird said.

The state revoked Baird’s driving license because he refused to take a Breathalyzer test at the time of his arrest on the night of May 16.

Baird’s case next comes up for court review on Aug. 19 when Morgan is scheduled to take up what he didn’t hear Wednesday: Defense attorney Bobby Guttridge’s request that charges against Baird be dismissed because he said police didn’t have justifiable reasons for stopping him.

Police said he was speeding and made a wide turn, according to court records.

Also, Guttridge wants Morgan to suppress Baird’s statement to police that he was going to the Long Branch Saloon, a bar in Vero Beach, when he was stopped by police.

Assistant State Attorney David Dodd said he may have some additional witnesses. Before trial, attorneys are allowed to interview witnesses who may be called to testify at trial.

By Elliott Jones, TCPalm.com

VERO BEACH — Court hearings on County Administrator Joe Baird’s traffic cases have moved to after 1:30 p.m. today at the Indian River County Courthouse on State Road 60, according to the office of the judge handling the case.

Hearings were to be held this morning on motions filed by Baird’s attorney, Bobby Guttridge. But County Judge David Morgan has moved them to this afternoon when he will review the status of a number of cases, his office staff said.

Baird, 52, was arrested May 16 on charges of DUI and speeding. That was in connection with late-evening traffic stop in Vero Beach.
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