PEORIA— Peoria Heights mayor Matt Wigginton was found not guilty by a Peoria County jury in his DUI case.
He declined to comment immediately after the trial concluded Monday, July 20.
The jury took roughly 45 minutes to come to a not guilty verdict after an eight-hour marathon day in court which included jury selection, arguments from attorneys and testimony from multiple witnesses including members of the Peoria Police Department and Fire Department.
Wigginton was arrested and charged with misdemeanor DUI offenses in April after he was found sleeping in his parked vehicle in a Downtown Peoria parking garage.
Body camera footage showed police arresting Wigginton, who could be seen sleeping in the front seat of his vehicle. His speech was noticeably slurred, but body camera footage did not show him operating the vehicle.
The fact that Wigginton did not operate the vehicle and was only parked in a parking garage was central to the argument made by his attorney Kevin Sullivan in court on Monday. Sullivan told the Journal Star after the trial he felt the jury ruled with “common sense.”
“I think the jury applied common sense to the fact that this law has potentially absurd results,” Sullivan said. “By doing the right thing, the law should change so they encourage people to do what my client did and not otherwise endanger themselves or others trying to sneak home under the radar. At what point if a person knows they should not be driving a car, to what measures do they have to take to avoid this law? What if they can’t afford a hotel or don’t have access to an Uber account or they’re in a place that doesn’t have cabs, especially at that hour? They’re not supposed to sleep outside.”
The prosecution’s argument centered on trying to convince the jury that while Wigginton did not operate the vehicle that night, he could have at any time chosen to drive it because the keys were in his pocket.
Prosecutors spent an enormous amount of time in court on Monday showing body camera footage taken from police officers that night which did show that Wigginton was heavily intoxicated, slurring his speech and not making much sense while talking.
No blood or urine sample or breathalyzer test were conducted on Wigginton but as officers testified in court on Monday, those were not needed to tell that he was clearly drunk.
Wigginton’s status as mayor made a point in court
Both the defense and prosecution argued, in different ways, that Wigginton’s status as the mayor of Peoria Heights did play a factor in this case.
Sullivan argued that the Peoria Police Department, which had roughly eight officers respond to what began as a wellness check, was “out to get” Wigginton. Sullivan told the Journal Star the only reason that many officers responded to the call is because of who Wigginton was.
“They were out to get him because he was the mayor,” Sullivan said. “All of those guys showed up because they were interested, had some interest because of the notoriety.”
Wigginton’s defense also called into question the actions of the first officer on the scene, John Harris. Harris, who has been with the Peoria Police Department for about a year and a half, used to work for the Peoria Heights Fire Department and knew Wigginton well prior to joining the Peoria Police force.
However, the defense argued that Harris and Wigginton did not have a good relationship during that time and got Harris to admit on the stand that he did call out Wigginton and other Peoria Heights Village Board Trustees during a board meeting once.
Harris said on the stand that he called in other officers to the scene, including his supervisor, to handle Wigginton, so there would appear to be no bias whatsoever in the case. Sullivan told the Journal Star it was clear from the body camera footage that Harris indeed did not divorce himself completely from the investigation.
The prosecution almost made a case that Wigginton’s status as mayor played a factor in the incident, yet they framed it as a mayor trying to leverage his title to get out of trouble.
Body camera footage showed Wigginton at one point on the phone with his wife prior to being taken to the hospital. During that phone call, he can be heard telling his wife to call then Peoria Heights Police Chief Dustin Sutton, Peoria Heights Fire Chief Austin Szentez and AMT CEO Andrew Rand.
Prosecutors asked the jury to consider why Wigginton would try to have that trio called and suggested it was because he wanted to see if he could control the situation and try to “squash it.”
What happened the night Wigginton was arrested?
Wigginton, based on what was said in court Monday, had admittedly drank some amount of alcohol the night of his arrest while attending the Gridiron Dinner, a charity comedy night at the Pere Marquette Hotel that is in many ways a showing of top brass and influential figures from around the Peoria region.
That event ended around 11 p.m. and Wigginton, following the event, was spotted walking into a Downtown Peoria bar on Main Street, The Zoo, sometime around midnight, according to Peoria Police officer Lantez Carpenter who reviewed nearby surveillance footage.
Wigginton left The Zoo around 1:30 a.m. and was then scene stumbling back into the lobby of the Pere Marquette Hotel, falling into a wall in the lobby before disappearing from view.
About an hour later, the banquet manager of the Pere Marquette spotted Wigginton slumped at the wheel of his car on the third floor of the hotel’s parking garage. She called the hotel’s security manager who arrived on scene and tried to wake up Wigginton.
The security manager, Jason Berry, said in court on Monday that he tapped on the window of Wigginton’s SUV trying to wake him and Wigginton picked up his head, only to slump it back down on the steering wheel, setting off the horn. When Berry was unable to wake Wigginton, he called police out of fear that Wigginton would wake up and try to drive the car.
Police showed up to the garage and were able to wake Wigginton, who on first appearance on body camera footage, was slurring his words and making little sense.
Paramedics from the Peoria Fire Department then also showed up and conducted mental fitness tests on Wigginton. He failed them, struggling to recall a memory phrase and unable to recite the months backwards.
After spending a considerable amount of time with officers and paramedics in the garage, Wigginton was then transported to Carle Hospital by an AMT ambulance.
Officer and paramedics testified Wigginton did not put up any physical resistance but was verbally uncooperative throughout the investigation.
At the hospital, a field sobriety test was performed on Wigginton. Following the field sobriety test, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Peoria Heights mayor found not guilty in DUI case
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star | USA TODAY Network
