By REX HOGGARD
Senior WriterORLANDO, Fla. – After a nearly 11-month investigation, former PGA Tour player Arjun Atwal should know his legal fate within weeks regarding a fatal accident last year near Orlando.
The Florida Highway Patrol has found the death of a central Florida businessman to be “a vehicular homicide’’ and forwarded its investigation to the State Attorney’s Office.
According to the FHP, witnesses said Atwal, 34, who lives in nearby Windermere, and John Noah Park, 48, a video-company production executive, were racing March 10 at speeds in excess of 90 mph when they lost control of their vehicles on a four-lane road in southwest Orange County. Park was killed; Atwal was not injured.
No arrests have been made, and it is up to the state attorney as to whether to follow the FHP report’s recommendation. Charges could range from racing, which in Florida is a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, to vehicular homicide, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum of five years in jail.
“We have to review all the evidence and decide how to proceed,’’ said Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman with the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office. “There’s no real way to say for certain right now what we will do.’’
The final report would only become public if State Attorney Lawson Lamar’s office were to proceed with charges. That decision could take 30 to 60 days, Tavernier said.
“Basically, it’s a nonarrest case, so there is no time issue attached to it, and he’s not a public-safety threat,” Tavernier said.
Atwal, an Indian native, is in New Delhi for the European Tour’s debut in India.
“We are glad that the process has been completed with respect to the Florida Highway Patrol and now look forward to the next step, which is the State Attorney’s Office. We’re extremely confident that when the facts are out, it will show this was nothing but a tragic accident and Arjun was not involved in any way,” said Bobby Kreusler, Atwal’s agent with Blue Giraffe Sports.
The investigation, originally expected to be completed within 60 days, was delayed by a backlog of traffic investigations and BMW’s policy of not supplying the software needed to retrieve data from the “black box” in Atwal’s 2006 BMW sedan, the FHP said.
Without the black-box data, investigators decided to submit the final report using a reconstruction of the crash on County Road 535, known as Winter Garden-Vineland Road, near Orlando.
“We have the calculations and reconstructions, and for many years we’ve been doing investigations based on this information,” FHP spokesperson Kim Miller said. “(Atwal’s) speed was at least 90 mph.”
According to the FHP, Park died after his 2006 Mercedes-Benz coupe spun out of control going around a curve on C.R. 535 and crashed into a tree with such force that one of the car's axles was flung into the upper branches.
The FHP said that Atwal’s car, which did not collide with Park’s, went in the opposite direction, across a grass median and two lanes of oncoming traffic before skidding to a stop on the northbound shoulder of the road.
• • •
Rex Hoggard is a
Golfweek senior writer. To reach him email
rhoggard@golfweek.com.
Posted: 2/7/2008
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