LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Toni Rice, the former director of Youth Transitional Services in Louisville, was indicted by a grand jury Thursday on eight charges related to her crash in a city car earlier this year.
Rice had been under investigation since Aug. 1 after her city-issued vehicle was involved in a single-vehicle crash. She resigned later that month.
The grand jury indictment charged Rice with:
- Criminal Mischief
- Tampering with Physical Evidence
- Leaving the Scene of an Accident/Failure to Render Aid
- Falsely Reporting an Incident
- Intimidating a Participant in a Legal Process (two counts)
- Tampering with a Witness
- Official Misconduct
According to court documents, a judge set a $15,000 bond for Rice, but, as of 6 p.m. Thursday, she hadn't been served an arrest warrant. She's due in court Monday.
The indictment stems from a crash in late July. Michael Scheser was on his way home from the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport when he spotted a car in a ditch just off Brownsboro Road near Interstate 71.
"I noticed a car with its lights on on the opposite side of the guardrail," Scheser said. "This is like 11:30 at night."
Scheser checked to see if someone was inside the car.
"I got out and went to the guardrail and I saw a woman sitting in the car, in the driver's seat," he said. "She still had her seatbelt on."
He didn't know how long the car had been there but said the driver was alert and moving.
Crashed vehicle on Brownsboro Road near Interstate 71 in Louisville, Ky.
"I yelled out to her, 'Are you OK?' And she's like 'Yes. I'm fine. I've called police, I've called my friends. Everyone is on the way,'" Scheser said.
But Scheser was hesitant to leave the scene.
"So I turned around back to my wife and I said, 'Call 911. Something doesn't seem right,'" he said.
While Scheser and his wife stayed at the scene, he said the driver did not.
"I thought she was just trying to shake off the accident," Scheser said. "You know how you may be nervously pacing? And so I'm watching her, and she's on her phone and she kept walking."
By the time police showed up, the driver was gone. But Scheser said she was seen on security footage walking through a nearby neighborhood.
"She's walking and talking on her phone and she actually even took a picture of our street sign, I guess, to help whoever was coming to pick her up know where she was going," he said.
Scheser doesn't know the identity of the driver or who picked her up but believes police do.
"They said that's on camera," he said. "The police said they have that vehicle on camera."
Deputy Mayor David James confirmed Rice resigned and that her city-issued vehicle was involved in a crash.
"There's currently an LMPD investigation, so I'll be very limited in what I'll be able to speak about," James said last month.
Back in 2017, when Rice was Quality Assurance Director in the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center, she was charged with shoplifting after police said she stole $600 worth of merchandise from a Sunglass Hut. The city suspended her without pay pending the investigation.
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