VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Wayne County Judge David Parrott is dealing with more than a domestic assault charge. Local 4 has learned Parrott was charged with driving while intoxicated after his car went off the road up north.
It’s been more than a year since Parrott was charged with DWI in Manistee, but the case is still open.
Parrott has filed a 45-page appeal and it trying to get his misdemeanor driving while intoxicated arrest thrown out, according to records. But the file is more than a foot high -- a legal maneuver clearly designed to make the case disappear, experts said.
The judge is charged locally with domestic violence and assault and battery -- both misdemeanors.
During the court proceedings, it was revealed that Parrott had a brush with the law in Manistee on Christmas Day 2018.
Back then, Parrott and the woman he is accused of assaulting in his Van Buren Township home had Christmas dinner with family, according to authorities. While he was driving to a posh Portage Lake resort, Parrott ended up going off the road and into a field, police said.
Parrott asked for a tow truck, but when that didn’t help, he asked for a sheriff’s deputy to come to the scene, court records show. The officer asked the judge to take a breathalyzer, according to authorities.
Parrott’s own pleadings say his breathalyzer exceeded .10, which is over the legal limit. The deputy arrested Parrott and had him do a blood draw, which the Manistee County prosecutor said exceeded the legal limit.
“There was information that there was alcohol involved,” Manistee Prosecutor Jonathan Hauswirth said. “(We) sent the blood work to a lab, got it back and made the charge.”
Parrott hired Mike Nichols, a well-known Lansing attorney, to represent him in his appeal of the driving while intoxicate case. Nichols represented former Rep. Suan Gamrat during her 2015 scandal.
Parrott is claiming the Manistee prosecutor erred by not including the breathalyzer into his case. Now the prosecutor is looking to get Parrott’s bond revoked.
“We are basically asking the judge to take notice of what’s going on down in Van Buren Township and to act accordingly, because, essentially, our assertion to the court is that this person cannot be trusted to follow the bond conditions and therefore should not be granted the freedom they’ve been granted up to this point,” Hauswirth said.