Manatee commissioner Kruse accused of DUI crash asks court to throw out bodycam video

Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse is seeking to get statements he made immediately after his April 20 suspected DUI crash — recorded on a sheriff’s office lieutenant’s body camera footage — thrown out of the criminal case against him.

Kruse crashed his Ford F-150 pickup truck head-on into a tree just inside his subdivision that evening. By the time an off-duty Manatee County Sheriff’s lieutenant working a detail in the community arrived, Kruse was sitting in the backseat of his wife’s SUV.

Earlier in the evening, the couple had gone to the Parrish home of local real estate developer Carlos Beruff, founder of Medallion Home and the developer behind Aqua by the Bay, to meet political consultant Anthony Pedicini.

After the meeting, Kruse and his wife went to Sixty East Italian Cucina & Martini Bar, near the Ellenton Premium Outlets mall.

Kruse was not arrested after the crash, nor was he asked complete any field sobriety tests. But following public uproar and a follow-up investigation, he was charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence.

In a Nov. 16 court filing, Kruse’s defense attorney motions the court to suppress any statements Kruse made to the sheriff’s office lieutenant on scene, including the body camera footage.

“The case law is clear that the law enforcement officer must ‘change hats’ from an accident investigation to a criminal investigation by first reading him his Miranda warnings,” his attorney Jeffrey Haynes said.

Criminal law expert Jennifer Zedalis explained how Chapter 316 in the Florida State Statutes applies to Kruse’s case. With decades of criminal litigation experience, Zedalis, a professor at the University of Florida, is also an expert in trial procedure and evidence.

“When you give information pursuant to your obligation as a driver, or owner of a car and a traffic crash, under that statute, that is privileged,” Zedalis said. “The only way that a police officer — and of course beyond that a prosecutor — can use statements that you make against you in a criminal case or so for example, in a DUI, is if the officer ‘changes hats.’”

The 1993 Florida Supreme Court ruling in State v. Norstrom says that an accused’s Fifth Amendment rights would be violated in the absence of the accident report privilege. That privilege exists to encourage drivers to be honest when explaining what caused a crash so that law enforcement and the National Highway Traffic and Safety Board can collect important data.

There are exceptions, Zedalis cautions. If someone voluntarily blurts out statements about being drunk or something of the like during a traffic crash investigation, those statements can be used in a criminal case.

Prosecutors also will need to prove Kruse was in physical control of the car, she said.

Zedalis pointed to another potential issue in the case, the audio recording from Kruse’s Ford Sync which automatically called 911 and captured Kruse’s wife telling him to get out of the truck.

“Communications that take place between a husband and a wife are privileged. Spouses can’t be compelled to give evidence against each other,” she said.

A hearing date for a judge to decide on Kruse’s request to have the body camera footage tossed out has not yet been set.

The case is set to go to trial during the two-week trial period that begins Feb. 6.

But although Kruse denied drinking, he admitted to driving that day when speaking with the Bradenton Herald in May.

“No, I was not. I was in a head-on collision with a tree and had an airbag go off,” Kruse said at the time.

Reached for comment Monday afternoon, Kruse declined to comment on the motion to suppress the statements he made in the body camera video.

Public admissions are fair game, however.

“If he admits to third parties, that he was driving, those statements are absolutely admissible in court against him,” Zedalis said. “But any evidence that law enforcement collected as a result of statements he made that night, they’re still an issue.”

Bradenton Herald reporter Ryan Callihan contributed to this report.