EDITORIAL: Public owed answers on DWI case

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July 26, 2010

Staff Reports Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Mon Jul 26, 2010, 11:49 PM EDT

NIAGARA FALLS — After reports published Saturday, the public is owed an accounting of how the daughter of a North Tonawanda councilwoman got off on a DWI charge, even though she drunkenly hit two parked cars on her way home from a bar.

No one would credibly believe that the daughter of NT Councilwoman-at-Large Nancy Donovan would have been let off in court on two traffic tickets if she wasn’t the daughter of NT Councilwoman-at-Large Nancy Donovan.

First, the story: Sara Donovan went drinking on Webster Street the evening of July 10, a Saturday night. The 23-year-old woman drove home, and while she did it, she hit two parked cars on Payne Avenue. She was found with a 0.13 percent blood alcohol content following breath and blood tests.

She was drunk. But unlike most people arrested for drunken driving, she was allowed by the district attorney’s office to plead guilty to just two tickets: one for speeding and one for parking. She paid a total of $280 in fines.

What, you might be wondering, happens to other people arrested for similar drunk driving arrests?

They plead guilty to driving while impaired, pay a fine of up to $1,000 and may have their license revoked for up to a year. This, in addition to the insurance-related problems (those convicted of an alcohol-related charge pay much higher rates) and any personal repercussions with an employer or potential future employers.

Experts interviewed confirmed that this is highly irregular. So, thanks to what seems a clear case of preferential treatment, Sara Donovan will face none of the same repercussions as most people who do what she did.

If the public is to have confidence in the legal system in their city, there cannot be more than one of them. There cannot exist one set of rules for average people and one for the ruling class.

The district attorney owes a full accounting of why he and his deputy signed off on this plea deal, which to date they have not done. The answer is likely that Donovan’s attorney was Henry Wojtaszek, former GOP county chairman, who used his political connections to put a thumb on the scales of justice.

This incident is politics at its worst.

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