Prosecutors on Wednesday charged a member of the Park City Planning Commission with drunken driving and two other counts stemming from a slow-speed traffic accident involving a police vehicle on Main Street over New Year’s.
Richard Luskin, who is 62 years old and lives in Old Town, has pleaded not guilty to each of the counts. He is charged with:
The count of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a class B misdemeanor, is the most serious and is punishable by a jail sentence of six months and a fine of $1,000 upon conviction.
Summit County Attorney David Brickey, who signed the charging document, said Luskin drove an Audi A4 into a Park City Police Department sport utility vehicle at approximately 12:24 a.m. on Jan. 1. City Hall prosecutors asked the county attorney to file the case instead of bringing the charges themselves since a municipal vehicle was involved.
Brickey said investigators tested the level of alcohol in Luskin’s blood at the Summit County Sheriff’s Office at 2:40 a.m. on Jan. 1, finding the level to be greater than the driving limit of .08 grams per 100 milliliters of blood. He did not release the result, and the number is not listed in the charging document.
The Police Department in early January said a police officer was driving southbound, the uphill direction, on Main Street, and noticed a northbound driver appeared to be hunched down behind the steering wheel. The officer stopped and honked the horn to warn the other driver he was drifting toward the police vehicle, the police said.
The driver did not stop, hit the police vehicle and started to drive away, according to the police. Rick Ryan, a police captain, said the officer got out of the vehicle and yelled for the driver to stop. The Audi then stopped, the police said. Ryan said the police vehicle suffered approximately $2,500 in damage.
The Summit County Jail said Luskin was booked into the jail at 1:32 a.m. on Jan. 1. Bail of $1,620 was posted for his release at 5:36 a.m. on the same day, according to the jail.
Luskin is scheduled to appear in Summit County Justice Court on Tuesday.
Walter Bugden, the attorney representing Luskin, acknowledged that Luskin had consumed alcohol with dinner the night of the accident and was text-messaging when the accident occurred. He had not analyzed the results of the blood test by Thursday.
Bugden, meanwhile, said Luskin suffers from several medical conditions that prevent him from passing a police officer’s field sobriety test, a series of exercises officers ask suspected drunken drivers to perform. He said Luskin should not have been arrested based on the field sobriety test and said Luskin told the officer about the medical conditions.
"We intend to defend the case in court," Bugden said.