A Village of Monarch Grove woman has escaped conviction on a drunk driving charge after hitting two parked cars last year at Brownwood.
Marie Annette Belcher, 57, entered a plea of no contest last week in Sumter County Court to a charge of reckless driving, reduced from a charge of driving under the influence. She has been placed on probation for one year and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service. She will get to keep her driver’s license.
Officers responded at 7:15 p.m. June 28 to Meggison Road near Cody’s Original Roadhouse at Brownwood where a white Buick SUV crashed into a parked green SUV, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department. The force of the crash forced the parked SUV into a black SUV parked directly in front of it.
Belcher was still seated in the white Buick SUV when officers arrived on the scene. One of the owners of the parked SUVs hit by Belcher’s SUV asked police if Belcher was going to be allowed to drive.
An officer noted that she had “bloodshot and watery eyes” and it appeared as if she had been drinking. Belcher was asked to step out of her vehicle and she was “unstable when walking.” She also used the officer’s patrol car “to support and steady herself.”
Belcher had to be told multiple times to stay near the officer’s patrol car. She “even began dancing for a short time,” the officer wrote in the arrest report. At one point she told an officer to “go ahead” and arrest her.
She then taunted an officer and dared the officer to “sue me.”
Belcher refused to submit to a breath test.
