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dgr81

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    Lynch To Plead Guilty on Friday

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/377851.html

     

    Guilty plea expected Friday by Lynch to a traffic violation

     

    DA looking for fair resolution

    By Gene Warner

    Updated: 06/25/08 7:21 AM

     

    Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch is expected to plead guilty Friday to a traffic violation — which is not a criminal charge — for the hit-and- run accident involving his vehicle, law enforcement sources say.

     

    Authorities investigating the May 31 accident have discussed two possible traffic violations: failure to exercise due care to avoid striking a pedestrian or leaving the scene of a property-damage accident.

     

    Each of those violations carries a maximum penalty of $250 and 15 days in jail, but first-time offenders are all but assured of avoiding jail on such charges.

     

    “We’ll look at something that we feel fits the facts and fairly resolves the issues,” Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said Tuesday. “Those [two] sections are commonly used to resolve cases of people charged with leaving the scene of a personal-injury accident.”

     

    Clark and others have said that, at most, Lynch would have been charged with leaving the scene of a personal-injury accident, a Class A misdemeanor.

     

    But last Friday, Clark announced that an agreement in principle had been reached to settle the case. That occurred after Clark, attorneys for the Bills and defense attorney Michael P. Caffery discussed a possible plea deal allowing Lynch to plead to a reduced charge.

     

    “It appears we have a resolution on the matter, but I’ll decline comment until Friday,” Caffery said Tuesday.

     

    Clark also refused to discuss which charge Lynch would plead guilty to, but the section on exercising due care seems to fit the facts of the case.

     

    Section 1146 of the state’s Vehicle and Traffic Law says, in part, “every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any bicyclist, pedestrian or domestic animal upon any roadway.”

     

    Lynch’s SUV struck a 27- year-old Ontario woman at about 3:30 that morning on Delaware Avenue at West Chippewa Street.

     

    Law enforcement officials have said that it was dark and raining, that the victim was wearing dark clothing, that the driver may have been distracted by another woman in front of the victim and that the driver did not try to hide the vehicle, which later was found in Lynch’s Hamburg driveway.

     

    Sources also have said that both Lynch and his passenger, Bills rookie wide receiver Steve Johnson, have claimed they didn’t know their vehicle had struck anyone.

     

    But Timothy G. O’Connell, the attorney for victim Kimberley Shpeley, has said that she and two friends claimed the SUV struck her, “slowed down and then came to a complete stop” before speeding off.

     

    Other witnesses, though, have told investigators that the SUV never slowed down.

     

    Sources familiar with the case expect Lynch to make a public statement about the incident Friday afternoon, either in Traffic Court or outside court.

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