NEWS

Prosecutor fired for going easy on drivers with speeding tickets

Andrew Wolfson

@adwolfson

Continuing on the warpath against speeders, fiery County Attorney Mike O’Connell has terminated one veteran prosecutor, suspended a second and reprimanded a third for striking sweetheart deals with motorists clocked at 100 mph or more.

O’Connell, who previously ended an age-old practice in which traffic scofflaws were allowed to plead guilty to the reduced charge “defective equipment,” fired Assistant County Attorney Tony Ambrose, suspended Bruce Niemi for five days and reprimanded Lonita Baker.

All three were found to have violated an office ruling barring the amending of charges of driving 36 mph or more over the speed limit when there is no valid reason to do so.

“Excessive speed is a leading factor in traffic crashes and fatalities,” said Josh Abner, a spokesman for O’Connell, who was in Lexington for a prosecutors’ convention and unavailable for comment.

“Someone driving 36 miles an hour over the speed limit is more than just excessive,” Abner said in a statement. “It is an absolute danger to themselves and others on the road.”

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Judges and defense lawyers said they were stunned that Ambrose, 71, who joined the office in 1992 and was well regarded in traffic court, was given the ax Tuesday.

In his termination letter, O’Connell said he had known Ambrose personally for many years and that firing him was regrettable, but that he had shown a pattern of violating office rules. “You have left me with no choice,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell cited two cases. In the first, an officer clocked motorist Brandon Johnson last year for driving at 100 mph in a posted 55 mph zone on Interstate 65, but Ambrose let him plead guilty to the amended charge of careless driving and pay a $75 fine and court costs. Ambrose said at the time he didn’t know of the office rule but should have, and he was reprimanded.

In the more recent episode, an officer clocked driver Austin Horstman for going 102 mph in a 55 mph zone on I-264, but Ambrose allowed him to plead guilty to reckless driving, for which he was required to attend state traffic school and pay court costs.

Ambrose later told a supervisor that he feared he would lose the case if it went to trial because the officer’s dashboard video was missing. But he admitted he made no independent effort to search for it and didn’t consult a supervisor about the deal, as required. The office’s chief criminal prosecutor concluded he should have tried the case without the video, relying on the officer’s testimony and radar gun evidence.

O'Connell said in the letter that Ambrose had violated rules requiring employees to perform their work “at a consistently high level” and to obey written rules and regulations.

Ambrose declined to comment.

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Horstman’s defense attorney, Annie O’Connell, who happens to be O’Connell’s daughter, said she was out of town and couldn’t review her file — or comment on the county attorney office policies because she doesn’t work there.

However, she said: “I have practiced against Tony Ambrose my entire career and regard him as a good lawyer. I have never personally seen him exercise his discretion unfairly.”

District Judges Sean Delahanty and Stephanie Pearce Burke, who have tangled with O’Connell on several issues, said Ambrose was an experienced, well-qualified prosecutor and will be missed.

Defending the sanctions, Abner cited National Safety Council reports showing that traffic fatalities have increased nearly 14 percent nationwide over the past years — the largest jump in more than a half century — and that the increase in Kentucky from 2014-16, 25 percent, was even more startling.

“That is why we take so seriously the policy of not amending these cases, absent any valid reasons to the contrary,” he said.

Niemi was suspended without pay for his handling of multiple cases.

In the most recent case, in December, he allowed Destiny Hyatt to plead guilty to reckless driving, dismissing a speeding charge even though she had been clocked at 101 in a 65 mph zone on I-265. Ambrose admitted he knew of the office policy barring amending of such cases and failed to document any problems with the case justifying a reduction in the charge.

He previously had been suspended for one day for referring a habitual speeder to traffic school even though he was ineligible because of his driving record. And in another case, he amended the charge against a driver charged with speeding 48 mph over the limit to reckless driving.

Niemi said he couldn’t comment, citing office policy on speaking to reporters.

Baker was reprimanded for agreeing to dismiss a case against Denitra King, who was clocked at 74 in a 35 mph zone, after she completed traffic school in Indiana. The reprimand said she violated one policy that bars recognizing out-of-state traffic school and the other on amending high-speed cases. She also acknowledged she agreed to dismiss the case because she “dropped the ball” and hadn’t responded to the defendant’s motion for discovery.

Niemi and Ambrose were hired in 1992, according to Abner, and both worked part time. Niemi’s salary is $38,372 and Ambrose was paid $41,629. Baker, who was hired in 2011, works full time and her salary is $67,622.

O’Connell — who was appointed in 2008, elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 — has fought against lenient treatment of allegedly dangerous motorists.

In 2015, he announced he was barring prosecutors from entering a type of plea agreement used for decades in which defendants could plead guilty to having defective equipment and avoid a moving violation and points assessed against their licenses.

Defense lawyers charged he had eliminated the plea to force more drivers into his local traffic school, Drive Safe Louisville, which raises revenue for the office. He said at the time that his goal was to “curb speeding and other risky driving.”

He called the plea a "legal fiction" that he said had been "historically abused" by "serial speeders" to the point where it had become an embarrassment in the court system.

"In reality, it was a joke," he said.

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com

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