Tampabay: Attorney's plea deal lifts some eyebrows

Borghetti

An officer said he smelled alcohol and noticed that Borghetti's eyes were bloodshot and watery. He asked her to take a field sobriety test.

Borghetti, who denied drinking, refused.

So a Clearwater officer arrested her on a misdemeanor DUI charge. Borghetti also refused a Breathalyzer test, leading to an automatic one-year driver's license suspension.

Borghetti, a St. Petersburg lawyer and former campaign manager for Pinellas County Judge Amy Williams, says she got no favoritism that Aug. 3 night. But was she treated like any other DUI defendant in the justice system?

Other defendants who refuse both Breathalyzer and field sobriety tests rarely get their charge reduced to reckless driving.

But that's what prosecutors did for Borghetti, ignoring their own policy.

And even those charged with an alcohol-related reckless driving charge face full DUI sanctions that include up to a year probation, community service and up to a $500 fine.

But not for Borghetti, 42, who wasn't fined a dollar, received no probation and not an hour of community service.

And then when prosecutors offered the deal, a county judge with a reputation for handing out less-severe sentences transferred the case to himself, taking it from another judge without her knowledge.

"I got no preferential treatment. The facts warranted the disposition I got," Borghetti said.

Others say her case is far from typical.

"This doesn't seem like the average disposition that the average Joe on the street would get," Clearwater lawyer Tom Carey said.

Carey, a board member of Remove Intoxicated Drivers, said the anti-DUI group would ask Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe to investigate his office's handling of the case.

McCabe did not return calls for comment. But his chief assistant, Bruce Bartlett, said his office showed Borghetti no favoritism.

Prosecutors can take a DUI, or any case, to trial only if they have a reasonable likelihood of winning a conviction, Bartlett said. Borghetti refused the Breathalyzer and sobriety test and did not appear impaired in the videotape of the stop, he said.

"I've reviewed the video, and I think a jury could draw the conclusion that she was not intoxicated beyond the legal limit," Bartlett said. "There's no other evidence to support that she was intoxicated.

"I've seen Anne Borghetti in court and at other times. It is my opinion, based on what I observed (on the video), she was not intoxicated."

Defense attorney Steve Bartlett, no relation to the prosecutor, said he doesn't blame Borghetti for taking a deal that's better than most.

"It's a great deal," he said. "But you have to question why prosecutors are giving some people better deals than others."

Not long after the traffic stop, Borghetti hired defense attorney Skip Olney, husband of Jan Olney, a friend of Borghetti's and a lead trial attorney in McCabe's office.

Borghetti pressed to have the DUI dropped entirely, Bruce Bartlett said. Prosecutors talked to the arresting officer about that possibility.

"He objected," Bartlett said. "He didn't feel good about it. So keeping in mind the wishes of the police, we didn't consider it."

Borghetti then asked for a careless driving infraction, which is a less-severe penalty than reckless driving. Bartlett said prosecutors refused.

Borghetti "didn't get away scot-free," he said.

On Feb. 22, Borghetti pleaded no contest to reckless driving. A judge withheld a formal finding of guilt and ordered her to pay $250 in court costs. Borghetti already had attended DUI school.

County Judge Bill Overton, who presides over traffic cases in St. Petersburg, accepted the plea deal after taking the unusual step of transferring it from another judge in North County Traffic Court.

Overton, who acknowledged the plea deal was "generous" of McCabe, said the transfer came after a request by Skip Olney, who works in St. Petersburg.

"I wouldn't normally move something from north to south county," the judge said. "But Olney wanted it done here rather than driving all the way to North County. I didn't mind. I was trying to do Skip a favor."

Overton transferred the case from Judge Myra McNary in Clearwater, who said she had no knowledge of either the case or the transfer.

McNary refused to say if she would have approved the plea deal. In her recollection, McNary said, prosecutors in her court had never offered such a generous plea in a DUI case.

Bruce Bartlett and Olney said cases are commonly transferred between traffic courts.

But DUI lawyers, including Steve Bartlett, say transfers between north and south county traffic courts are uncommon.

Usually, they occur only when a defendant has separate traffic charges pending in both traffic courts simultaneously. A judge might then transfer the cases so they can be heard together in one court.

That wasn't the case with Borghetti.

Olney said Borghetti refused the Breathalyzer and sobriety tests because, as a defense attorney, she knows the tests are often inaccurate.

Bruce Bartlett said, "She had reason to refuse because of her legal knowledge, and she had questions about the Breathalyzer. I'm not saying that's right."

On the police video of her DUI stop, Olney said his client was "near perfect," though a field sobriety test is designed to allow an officer to judge a driver's impairment.

Prosecutors can use the refusal to take a Breathalyzer and the field sobriety test against the defendant. The refusals are admissible at trial.

"I thought this case should have been dropped," Olney said. "Prosecutors felt she needed something more than a slap on the wrist. It wasn't a sweetheart deal. She took a beating."

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