Santee Sheriff Detective Sentenced to Five Years Probation for Drunk Driving Incidents

A San Diego County Sheriff's detective that was assigned to the was sentenced Friday to five years probation and 90 days of home detention for last summer in Palm Desert.

Barbara Jean Crozier, 48, pleaded guilty last month to one count of failing to report an accident and two counts each of DUI with injury, DUI, and hit-and-run with property damage, all misdemeanors.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Harold W. Hopp said Crozier had done an "exemplary job" seeking treatment since her arrest last Aug. 30. Instead of sending her to jail for 90 days, he ordered that she be monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet.

"This is obviously an unusual situation ... I think the appropriate situation is home detention. In-custody time is meant to (communicate) something she already appreciates, that you can't drive when you're not able to," Hopp said.

He said Crozier, as a law enforcement officer, would appreciate the terms of probation.

"Based on what I've read in the (probation) report and letters of support, we're not going to see you back here again," he told Crozier.

He also ordered the defendant to pay about $1,800 in fines and complete a three-month DUI treatment program.

Deputy District Attorney Gypsy Yeager said she contacted all the victims in the case, but none attended the sentencing.

Witnesses told Riverside County sheriff's deputies that a vehicle driven by a woman struck several parked cars and ran over a pedestrian's foot last Aug. 30 at an apartment complex parking lot at Fred Waring Drive and Town Center Way.

"(The victim) yelled at the female driver, whom he could see clearly through the driver's-side window, to stop," according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant. "He yelled, 'Stop! You ran over my foot!' He said the female driver then drove away south ... without stopping to render aid or see if he was injured."

The witnesses gave investigators a description of the vehicle and its license plate number, said sheriff's Sgt. Joe Borja.

Later that night, deputies received a call that a vehicle had crashed into a water fountain at the entrance of the Marrakesh Country Club at 47-000 Marrakesh Drive. The license plate of the vehicle matched the one from the hit- and-run, Borja said.

Crozier had "an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her and through her own admonition she had consumed several alcoholic beverages prior to being involved in a traffic collision," according to the declaration, which says a forensic chemist later estimated her blood-alcohol level at around .09 percent.

Crozier was assigned to the Santee substation at the time of her arrest. She remains an employee of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, according to spokeswoman Jan Caldwell.

-City News Service