TILDEN LAW – Orlando Criminal Attorney

DUI and drug offense charges were dismissed in a case against J. C. France, grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.  As a result, J. C. France has been reinstated by Grand-Am Road Racing to compete in Rolex Series road-racing events after a five-month suspension following his arrest last year.

Evidence was thrown out of the case against France and the DUI and drug possession charges were not pursued. All the evidence that Daytona Beach police piled up against France was thrown out because of a jurisdictional technicality.

France, 44, was arrested along with half brother Russell Van Richmond, 41, Oct. 8 by Daytona Beach police on charges of DUI and narcotics possession. The two men were pulled over after an officer saw them racing, then another officer saw France roll through a red light.

According to a police, France and Van Richmond were racing over the Seabreeze Bridge and Daytona Beach police stopped them. When police found both men, who were in separate cars and stopped in different places, they found cocaine on them, according to reports.

In an order earlier this month, Circuit Judge Patrick Kennedy said that France’s traffic infraction occurred within the city of Holly Hill and the officer who followed France made an “unlawful stop” of the vehicle because the officer was outside of his jurisdiction.

France won’t compete in this weekend’s Rolex Series event at Virginia International Raceway. He’s not expected to attend Saturday’s Bosch Engineering 250.

“Being out of the car was tough, not just for that race but since then, too,” France said. “Sometimes it takes losing something to understand its importance. I was getting a little ragged and needed a good kick in the butt; I got it.”

If you have been arrested or charged with a Orange County DUI or other criminal offense in Orlando and are facing criminal prosecution in either Orange County, Seminole County, Florida, contact the attorneys at Tilden Law for an initial and confidential consultation, 407-599-1234.

Sharon Wolfe faces charges of DUI and Leaving the Scene of a Crash causing damage (hit and run) stemming from a traffic incident this past Sunday, April 4, 2010.  Sharon Wolfe is the wife of Tavares Mayor, Robert Wolfe.  According to witness statements, Wolfe was driving a Chevrolet Camaro when her car veered off the roadway and struck a speed limit sign before she drove off from the scene.  Wolfe’s DUI charge is considered a higher level offense due to the accident.

Wolfe was later found by Tavares police asleep in the driver’s seat of the car parked in a handicapped space at Florida Hospital Waterman just before 5 a.m.   Police also found a bottle of Kahlua and Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueurs and several pills of the prescription sleep aid Ambien in the car. According to police reports, Wolfe had a blood-alcohol level between .072 and .073 percent. The legal limit in Florida is .08. However, police charged her with DUI because she told officers she drank the alcohol and took the medication.  Because her blood alcohol level was under Florida’s legal limit, Wolfe’s driver’s license will not be administratively suspended.

Florida law allows for DUI charges to be prosecuted by way of the “impairment theory” due to alcohol amounts reacting differently in individuals.  Wolfe was booked into the Lake County Jail and later released after posting $750 bail.

Winter Park Police Vice Squad unit arrested Rollins College and UCF students Monday night during an undercover drug bust.  Students at both colleges spent the night in the Orange County Jail after a sting operation netted both buyers and sellers of illegal drugs. 

Among those arrested was Keith Prusak, 25, who is accused of selling a pound of marijuana/cannabis to a undercover drug agent. 

Police set up shop at the house on Northwood Boulvevard, near Baldwain Park, after arresting four or five occupants, spokesman Officer Jim Whitman said. All together, police seized three pounds of marijuana, four ounces of hallucinogenic mushrooms, 14 grams of cocaine, two pistols and $12,840 in cash. Of those arrested,  five defendants identified themselves as students.

The defendants included two or three from Rollins College and one or two from UCF, Whitman said.  One student arrested, Cory Fritch, 22, listed his home address as the Rollins campus on Holt Avenue in Winter Park. After agents sold him a small amount of pot from agents, they discovered he possessed almost a half-ounce of cocaine, records show

If you have been arrested or charged with a Drug Crime or other criminal offense in the Orlando area and are facing criminal prosecution in either Orange County, Osceola County or Seminole County, Florida, contact the attorneys at Tilden Law for an initial and confidential consultation, 407-599-1234.

Apopka Police officer Tanya Culver was arrested Sunday, April 4, 2010, by the Sanford Police department on allegations of domestic violence.  The arrest was officer Culver’s second in as many months on the same charge. 

Tanya Culver, 36, was arrested late Sunday for violating the conditions of her bond in a March domestic-violence case. She is accused of firing a gun at her husband and threatened to kill herself on March 7, according to an arrest report.

Culver’s husband called police just before 11 p.m. Sunday to report that his wife, who has been ordered to stay away from him, showed up at the same bar he was at in Sanford and threatened to kill him and then herself.

Culver told her husband she “would end him, run him over and kill herself,” according to the report.

After her husband left the bar, Culver then went to their shared home and called him from a cell phone that had been left the house, the report states. During that conversation she again threatened to kill herself, the report said. Culver was also ordered to stay away from their home.  She is being held without bond at the Seminole County jail.  Culver has been on unpaid leave from the Apopka Police Department since March 7.

Suspected burglar, James E. Washington, was arrested today on charges of burglary and resisting a law enforcement officer without violence.  Washington, 49, was as arrested as he lodged himself in a rooftop air vent unable to free himself. 

Witnesses told police that Washington was seen remving copper wire from the side of a building on North Orange Blossom Trial in Orlando at 2:15 a.m. Washington was ultimately arrested for resisting an officer for refusing to obey a lawful order given by law enforcement.    

In an effort to gain Washington’s cooperation, police indicate they fired a Taser at Washington stunning him.  Washington was being held at the Orange County Jail on $3,600 bond.