Oldham County judge-executive refutes claims he broke the law, left scene of accident

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Oldham County Judge-Executive David Voegele is refuting claims he broke the law and left the scene of an accident.

Voegele told WDRB News he is now using his own money, about $850, to pay for damage to the county-owned SUV he was driving.

WDRB Investigates filed an Open Records Request for a police report and photos from the crash after hearing concerns that the situation was being covered up.

Voegele said on June 18 he was delivering something on county business in a parking lot in Buckner when he attempted to go around a FedEx truck that was parked there for a delivery. That's when, he said, he tried to squeeze between the truck and another car in a parking space and misjudged the parked FedEx truck by a quarter of an inch.

He said he hit the back of the truck, scraping the county-owned SUV. Voegele said there was only damage to the SUV and not the truck. He said when the FedEx driver came to the truck, he told him he didn’t think the driver was parked right. He said there was a verbal disagreement between him and the driver, but there was no yelling.

Voegele said it was an "accident, definitely my fault. He had disagreed that he was parked wrong."

He said the driver called police, and he left before police arrived because there was no damage to the FedEx truck, and because the driver's policy was to call police on any circumstance that involves one of their trucks.

"I left and went back to the office and went down to the police station right after, and made a report too," Voegele said.

The judge-executive cited KRS 189.580, a law that discusses what to do in crashes, and said it shows he did nothing wrong by leaving.

"No law that said I had to stay there," he said. "People are making assumptions that you left the scene of the accident, I didn’t do anything wrong. I just decided I was leaving because there was no damage to the other vehicle.”

He said he originally thought it would be an insurance claim, but the small amount of damage "wouldn’t even meet our deductible."

Voegele said he stepped up and paid for repairs to the SUV, even though county employees would not be required to do so.

FedEx has not returned a request for comment.

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