DUI case dropped for Florida official. Deputy acted ‘incorrectly,’ state attorney says
Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse will not be prosecuted for driving under the influence after he crashed his truck into a tree in April 2022, the State Attorney’s Office revealed this week.
There was not enough evidence to proceed with a case, State Attorney Division Chief Darlene Ragoonanan said in Tuesday’s filing.
The deputy at the scene did not perform a sobriety test because he “incorrectly concluded” he couldn’t do a DUI investigation, the filing said.
And a judge had ruled the deputy’s body camera footage — which showed Kruse slurring his words and the deputy reprimanding him and his wife for letting him drive — was inadmissible because the deputy never read Kruse his Miranda rights.
The crash happened around 5:30 p.m. April 20 when the Manatee County Commissioner drove his white F-150 pickup truck into a tree on Greyhawk Boulevard, less than one mile away from his home.
Several people passing by reported it to an off-duty deputy, Lt. Nicholas Pruitt, who was working security in the neighborhood. By the time he arrived, Kruse was in the back seat of his wife’s vehicle.
Kruse was not issued a sobriety test or arrested, despite the fact that deputies said Kruse had shown signs of impairment on the scene.
“The deputy incorrectly concluded that because he did not see the defendant behind the wheel of the car, and he did not have any independent witnesses placing the defendant behind the wheel of the car, he would be unable to conduct a DUI investigation,” Ragoonanan wrote in Tuesday’s filing. “In fact, the deputy’s encounter with the defendant was extremely brief and the deputy did not ask the defendant whether he had been drinking alcohol that evening, did not ask the defendant to perform any field sobriety exercises and did not ask the defendant to submit a breath sample to determine his blood alcohol content.”
“No DUI investigation was conducted that night and upon the wife’s request, the defendant was allowed to go home while a tow truck was summoned to remove the truck,” she wrote.
The next day, deputies learned that Kruse’s vehicle alert system called 911 upon impact and began recording his conversations, providing audio evidence that “established he was driving at the time of the crash,” she wrote.
“(The deputy) had enough information to believe that Commissioner Kruse was impaired and he was driving the vehicle. He should have never let (Kruse) leave the scene of the accident,” Michael Barfield, a Sarasota-based paralegal with experience in DUI cases, previously told the Bradenton Herald. “You’ve got an admission that he was driving — directly from his mouth — on camera. That’s a major, major red flag.”
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. Lt. Pruitt was awarded Deputy of the Month for May 2023 for working with two other deputies to free a domestic violence victim being held and threatened by her husband, who was armed with a sword.
State Attorney Ed Brodsky’s office filed the case against Kruse in June 2022. In January 2023, Circuit Court Judge Erika Quartermaine issued a ruling that prevented the state from using certain parts of the body camera footage captured in the moments after the crash.
In the video, Kruse appeared to slur his words as he answered a deputy’s question.
The trial was postponed as the state appealed the decision, according to the Florida Second District Court of Appeal Docket, but the appeal was dismissed by Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office on June 15.
Kruse is a first-term board member who was first elected to the Manatee Board of County Commissioners in 2020. The Republican official is an at-large commissioner, which means he represents all of Manatee County’s residents on the board.
The 47-year-old has a background in real estate and affordable housing. As of Friday, Kruse has not indicated whether he will seek re-election to his seat in 2024.
This story was originally published June 23, 2023 at 10:38 AM.
