A man who left a woman to die after she fell from a golf cart has filed for bankruptcy.
Timothy Jacob Foxworth, 39, of Wilmington, N.C., is seeking bankruptcy protection, according to a document on file with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Foxworth likely racked up sizable legal bills after achieving a startling victory last year when he walked away virtually unpunished for the death of 51-year-old Shelly Osterhout, who had been visiting her father in The Villages when she fell from a golf cart and later died.
Foxworth on May 20 in Sumter County Court pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges in connection with the July 16, 2017 incident. He was sentenced to one year of probation and 50 hours of community service.
Foxworth had been visiting his parents in the Village of Gilchrist when he met Osterhout at a bar at Brownwood Paddock Square. They left together in his parents’ golf cart from which she fell, suffering the fatal head injury. Foxworth told police he “panicked,” dragged her body into a flower bed and drove away. She was discovered by Good Samaritans who called for an ambulance. She later died at Ocala Regional Medical Center.
Foxworth was represented by attorney Andrew Moses, who negotiated the charges down from DUI manslaughter and hit-and-run felonies to misdemeanor charges of culpable negligence and DUI impairment. Moses relied on case law that dictated his client could not be charged with leaving the scene of an accident because there was no crash – Osterhout fell from the golf cart when Foxworth discovered he was traveling in the wrong direction and cut a sharp U-turn. Moses also ordered a voluminous report from an expert witness which supported his argument.
Osterhout’s father wrote a letter to Judge William Hallman expressing his outrage over the sentence. Her father alleged that the prosecutor’s office had been intimidated by the Foxworth family’s “deep pockets.”
Foxworth’s parents sold their home in The Villages months after their son’s arrest. They relocated to North Carolina.
Roger Foxworth accompanied his son to court on the day of the sentencing.