An Ogden man was charged in Utah’s 2nd District Court Friday in connection with a DUI crash on Christmas Day in Ogden that injured a woman. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
OGDEN — An Ogden man now faces felony charges after prosecutors say he was drinking alcohol prior to a car crash that injured a woman on Christmas Day.
Rigoberto Vazquez, 23, of Ogden, was charged Friday with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and causing serious bodily injury and failure to stop at a serious injury accident, third-degree felonies. He was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor.
About 12:40 am on Dec. 25, Ogden police were sent to the scene of a crash at the intersection of 30th Street and Brinker Avenue. Police say a Dodge pickup truck was driving south when it failed to stop at a stop sign and yield to a Jeep driving west. The vehicles collided, according to charging documents, and the driver of the pickup drove away. Several witnesses to the crash gave similar descriptions of the driver of the truck.
The driver of the Jeep was pinned inside the car following the crash, as her legs were “trapped between the seat and the door,” charging documents say. Police noted that the driver was nonresponsive and in and out of consciousness when they arrived. Members of the Ogden Fire Department had to cut the vehicle open to get her out of the car. “At a minimum,” the woman suffered a shattered right femur, according to the charges.
Police say they later found the pickup belonging to Vazquez, who lives roughly a block away from the crash site. Officers went to the home and talked with one of Vazquez’s relatives, who told police that Vazquez was inside. Officers talked with Vazquez in person, and they believed he matched the description of the crash suspect, the charges state.
Vazquez “refused” to speak with police, but a family member told police that she and Vazquez were at a family gathering earlier in the day, and he had been drinking alcohol, the court documents allege. Police say Vazquez left the gathering alone in his pickup shortly before the crash took place. Police checked Vazquez for injuries and reported finding scrapes on both of his shins, and his right shin had “visible blood.”
Officers described Vazquez’s eyes as bloodshot and glossy. He would not answer officers’ questions, but they said his physical responses were “slow and delayed” while his eyes were slow to react to light, according to the charges.
“Field sobriety tests were not performed due to Vazquez proving that he was a flight risk as he had already fled from the scene of the accident as well as him being uncooperative,” investigators wrote in the charges.
Vazquez allegedly refused to fill out DUI paperwork or take a chemical test. Charging documents say that after a warrant for a blood draw was approved, multiple police officers had to be called to the scene to help with “holding and controlling Vazquez’s arms since he would not agree to cooperate with the blood draw.”
Vazquez was booked into the Weber County Jail after the crash, though he was no longer in police custody as of Friday. His initial court appearance is scheduled for May 26 in Ogden.
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Jacob Scholl joined KSL.com as a reporter in 2021. He covers northern Utah communities, federal courts and technology.
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