Warren District Court’s chief judge is charged with driving while intoxicated with a high blood alcohol content after a rear-end crash involving a SMART bus March 25 in Sterling Heights.
Judge John Michael Chmura, 63, is charged in 41A District Court in Sterling Heights with driving with a blood alcohol content of .17 or more, according to online court records.
St. Clair County Prosecutor Mike Wendling told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday, May 21, the charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and is the Michigan “super drunk” statute, but he could not specify what the blood alcohol level was.
He said “based on the facts we authorized the charge … the drunk driving high BAC and we will handle it the same as we would handle any case in our county.”
The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office referred a criminal warrant request for Chmura to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council for reassignment outside of Macomb to avoid possible conflicts of interest.
Wendling said the case came to his office late last week. He said he did not yet have an arraignment date on the charge. A hearing is listed for Aug. 17 in the online court record with the note “hold date for scheduling.”
The court record did not list an attorney for Chmura, who did not immediately reply to an email sent by the Free Press this week. In a March 26 email to the Free Press, a day after his arrest, Chmura said: “I have no comment at this time.”
Police said in a March 26 news release that two bus passengers were provided medical care at the scene and released after the crash about 11:30 p.m. March 25 in the area of northbound Van Dyke Avenue near Triangle Drive. It said a Ford Fusion rear-ended the bus.
Police said the Fusion driver, whose name was not released at the time, was arrested on suspicion of operating while impaired, booked and processed at the county jail pending the results of a blood test. Sheriff’s Commander Jason Abro told the Free Press the person was processed, photographed, fingerprinted and released once sober, which he said was late morning March 26.
Jaren Brown, SMART’s assistant vice president of marketing and communications, said in a March 26 email that the bus driver pulled over to a stop and was rear-ended. There was minimal damage to the bus, which had four passengers. The bus driver was cleared to resume bus service.
Video from SMART obtained through a Freedom of Information Act showed the crash, passengers lurching forward at impact and one passenger moving up a few rows of seats and rubbing a knee.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Warren judge facing ‘super drunk’ charge in rear-end bus crash
Reporting by Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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