(Jan. 9, 2015) There is a reason they don’t usually include priors during court proceedings.
Gerald Lusby was facing a fairly standard DUI/DWI infraction pursuant to an event that occurred almost a year ago. Lusby was driving down Coastal Highway around 3 a.m. when stopped by Ocean City Police Department Officer Matt Zimmerman for failure to obey traffic control devices, in this case the painted lines on the highway.
According to testimony, the minivan Lusby was operating moved from the second lane over to the bus lane, straddled the line and moved back to straddling the line between lanes two and three for some distance. This initiated the traffic stop.
Zimmerman said he asked Lusby for his driver’s license, and Lusby replied it was in the center console. Zimmerman said he became alarmed when Lusby reached into his front pocket instead, eventually producing a card and handing it to the officer. It was an American Express credit card.
Eventually finding the requested credentials, Lusby agreed to take field sobriety tests. Zimmerman said Lusby had failed the tests, arrested him and took him back to the Public Safety Building at 65th Street for processing. Lusby then refused other tests, including a breathalyzer.
He was charged with driving under the influence and driving while impaired, and he faced those charges in court on Wednesday.
The jury of of seven women and five men took about 30 minutes to convict Lusby of the lesser charge, DUI.
It was then that Assistant State’s Attorney Bill McDermott described Lusby’s past.
“Gerald Lusby is the most dangerous driver on Worcester County roads today,” he said.
Counting a probation before judgment finding in an earlier case, this is Lusby’s 11th time facing similar charges.
“I have to think about the protection of the public,” Judge Thomas Groton said as he sentenced Lusby to a year in jail. “This is one thing I can do to keep citizens safe for as long as I can.”
