SPRINGFIELD, MA : Agawam woman admits driving drunk in crash that severely injured pedestrian on Tuesday, 26th September 2016
Springfield, Massachusetts
An Agawam woman has pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge in connection with a crash that left a pedestrian with severe head trauma.
Catherine Sabol, 43, pleaded guilty Monday in Hampden Superior Court to operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of a property damage accident and two counts of leaving the scene of a personal injury accident.
sabol.jpgCatherine Sabol, 43, of Agawam(Agawam Police Department)
Judge John Ferrara accepted the defendant's guilty pleas and scheduled sentencing for Thursday.
The plea change came 29 months after Sabol was charged with mowing down pedestrian Paul Bachini, then 61, as he walked along South West Street in Agawam with his wife.
The early afternoon crash left Bachini with severe head trauma and other injuries, police said. He was initially hospitalized in critical condition.
Two defense motions to suppress evidence were denied before the trial, which was scheduled to start Monday. In the most recent, Judge Mark D. Mason ruled in June that statements made by Sabol and her brother after the accident could be used at trial.
In his decision, the judge wrote that Sabol's brother, who was outside his South West Street home, verbally indicated that Sabol was inside and that Agawam Police Sgt. Mark Pfau was welcome to enter. Sabol's brother said his "sister is in the house and s---faced," Pfau wrote in his report.
The defendant was sitting at the kitchen table crying and asked if "she had hit anything," the officer wrote. She admitted to having four or five glasses of wine before the crash, finishing the last one around noon, according to Mason's ruling.
Police said that Sabol, after hitting Bachini, struck several other objects along the side of the road but continued driving away from the scene. Her car was found about a half-mile down the road.
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Agawam woman admits driving drunk in crash that severely injured pedestrian