“He [Jeremy Jordan] implies that he is new to the criminal system and that his serious crimes are, at heart, the result of an “accident” fueled by an alcohol problem he did not know he had. This is far from the truth.”
— Michael Schrunk, Multnomah County District Attorney
31-year old Jeremy Jordan, who was sentenced to 70 months in prison after being charged with hit-and-run and DUII in November 2008, is now reaching out to the public and the media to tell his side of the story.
In the early morning hours of May 10th, 2008 an intoxicated Jordan stole beer from a Safeway store clerk (who refused to sell it to him), sped out of a parking lot and struck Eric Davidson, who was biking down NE 69th near Fremont. Jordan did not stop to check on Davidson and was caught by police shortly thereafter.
Davidson — who was more heavily intoxicated than Jordan — sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury from which he will never fully recover (his wife kept a daily blog of his recovery).
Now Jordan and his wife are reaching out to tell their story — and the prosecutor who worked the case has stepped in to tell the state’s version.
Like Davidson’s wife, who maintained a detailed and personal blog account of how the crash impacted their life, Jordan’s wife has also started a blog at 70months.wordpress.com. Jordan has also been busy from his prison cell, writing letters to Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, The Oregonian, Oregon Public Radio, and others.
Implicit in Jordan’s letters is that the incident was just a tragic “accident” and that Jordan himself was also a victim. On the About page of Jordan’s wife’s blog, she writes about Davidson:
(Photo: 70months blog)
The negligence on the part of the bicycle rider–who was found to be even more intoxicated than Jeremy and was not wearing a helmet and only had a bare minimum of lighting–did not deflect blame from Jeremy’s criminal actions in the eyes of the law or in the eyes of the injured man’s family, though I do believe blame is shared to the degree that neither man was valuing his life that night; both were living dangerously and recklessly; and, both were breaking the law by operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
In a letter to Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen in response to a recent article she published about Oregon’s DUII programs, Jordan wrote:
“…My Assault II conviction was a drunk driving accident, in which I collided head-on with a bicyclist I did not see (also heavily intoxicated) and left the scene. I never realized that I had a problem with alcohol prior to the accident.”
This outreach by Mr. Jordan and his family has not gone unnoticed by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s who handled his case. Yesterday, DA Michael Schrunk sent a four-page letter (download 82KB PDF here — warning: includes graphic description of collision) to Governor Kulongoski where he rebuts many of the contentions made by Jordan in his recent public outreach effort.
Schrunk’s main point to the Governor is that Jordan is not quite the innocent victim he’s making himself out to be. From the opening paragraph:
“He [Jeremy Jordan] implies that he is new to the criminal system and that his serious crimes are, at heart, the result of an “accident” fueled by an alcohol problem he did not know he had. This is far from the truth.”
Schrunk then details what their investigation has found about how the incident occurred. After describing Jordan’s aggressive robbery in the Safeway store and his excessive speed into the roadway, Schrunk also makes it clear that Davidson had his bike light turned on and, “despite his intoxication, was seen on Safeway security video riding legally (close to curb, traveling straight, normal speed, etc).”
Also in the letter, Schrunk debunks Jordan’s assertion that he was unaware he had an alcohol problem:
“Defendant states in his August 2009 letter to Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen that he was unaware of his “alcohol problem” until after the crash. First, this misses the point. The “problem” is not the alcohol, but instead Mr. Jordan’s violent and reckless acts that night directed at three victims, starting with the robbery and ending with his driving into a vulnerable human being and leaving him lying in the road.”
Jordan wrote in his letter to Governor Kulongoski that he had “no history of violence”, but Schrunk presents facts about Jordan’s criminal history that paints a much different picture. Jordan has a criminal history that includes three felonies committed between 1989 and 1995 while he was still a juvenile.
In concluding his letter, Schrunk writes that in his 20+ career as a prosecutor he has seen plenty of “utterly callous acts, but rarely ones as extreme as Mr. Jordan’s”.
Here’s the final sentence of Schrunk’s letter:
“In 70 months Jordan will emerge and resume his life in society with his family and friends. The victim will not. He will never live independently, never have the children he and his wife were planning, and likely never work. There is unfairness here, but not to Jeremy Jordan.”
— Download the DA’s letter (82KB PDF)
— 70months.wordpress.com (Blog by Jeremy Jordan’s wife)
— AceAndEric.wordpress.com (Blog by Eric Davidson’s wife)