UPDATE: Walter Parks III was sentenced to a total of 11 and a half months to five years in Indiana County Jail, 5 years probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $2500.
In Indiana County Court today, a number of defendants are scheduled to both plead guilty and be sentenced in driving under the influence cases. In a sign of the times, many of the DUIs are for substances other than alcohol, and most of them involve other charges, such as accidents, several simple assaults, and a theft.
There is one sentencing proceeding for a case in which the defendant has already pleaded guilty. 42-year-old Walter Elroy Parks III of Clymer to driving under the influence (second offense) and fleeing or eluding police in a case from last July. Two counts of aggravated assault, three counts of recklessly endangering another person and other offenses will not be prosecuted.
Parks was pulled over on Route 422 near the Route 954 exit in White Township, which was a construction zone, but as the trooper was running a computer check on him, he drove away, heading east, eventually making his way to Strongstown. At one point, he came upon a closed bridge and made a U-turn on Rexis Road, driving through a farm field and sideswiping a police cruiser back on the road before his vehicle skidded into a culvert.
Police also turned up an outstanding warrant for Parks from Cambria County, but online court records do not indicate the nature of that warrant or its disposition.
