Reconstruction of the impact. The car northbound (right in this undated file image) on the main highway. The bicyclist was eastbound (straight ahead). Uncertain to investigators: Was the bicyclist in the marked crosswalk? Who had a green light?
Court documents: Hit-run driver lied, then recanted
WINONA, Minn. – The county prosecutor’s criminal complaint for a car-bicycle collision Sunday includes details that neither the State Patrol nor Winona police shared with news reporters. The complaint, filed in Winona Court, says Jessica Shuntae Smith initially denied driving the vehicle when confronted by police and blamed her boyfriend. This, according to the complaint and other sources, is what happened:
> 10:50 a.m.: A 2007 Mercury Montego, was northbound at 10 to 25 mph on combined Highway 14-61 at Huff Street. A man on an e-bicycle was crossing the highway toward Lake Winona. The intersection has stop-go signals and a marked pedestrian crosswalk.
> A witness told police she saw the bicyclist flying through the air following the collision.” He suffered a severe contusion and laceration on his left leg. blood pooled on the pavement.
> The car’s driver, according to the witness, stopped for a moment, rolled down the window, and asked the bicyclist if he was OK. Then the driver turned onto Huff and headed east across Lake Winona.
Smith. Out on bail. Age 30. Earlier lived in Waseca.
> A witness in a separate car followed the suspect automobile across Lake Winona to Belleview Street. The vehicle pulled into a driveway. The driver entered an apartment building. The witness called 911.
> Police found fresh blood on the suspect car. A damaged headlight was embedded with what looked to be human tissue. Police traced the car’s registration to a man living at the Belleview Street apartment
> Police knocked at the apartment door. After 10 minutes a woman answered. She told officers that her boyfriend was driving.
> Police arrested the boyfriend even though he denied driving the car and wasn’t even in the car. He told police that his girlfriend had admitted to him that she bumped into a person.
> The witness told police they had the wrong person, that the driver was female and heavy-set. Also, the witness said, the girlfriend was still in the same clothes as when she was driving.
> Police found a video that showed the woman arriving at the apartment in the car. Before going into the apartment, she was walking around the car apparently checking for damage.
> Under further questioning, the woman admitted she was driving. She said that she had stopped to ask if the bicyclist was OK and that she believed he said yes.
> Smith was charged on a felony for criminal vehicular operation involving substantial bodily harm, also on a felony account of leaving the scene after causing a collision, and on a misdemeanor for driving without a license, and on a misdemeanor of driving an uninsured vehicle. Police noted too there wasn’t any current insurance for the car and that Smith’s license had been revoked earlier.
> The bicyclist, Scott Adrian Sabotta, age 67, of Winona, was in recovery at a LaCrosse hospital.