SEYMOUR — An Indiana state legislator pleaded guilty Monday to drunken driving charges less than two weeks after police say he crashed his pickup truck through an interstate highway guardrail and drove away.
Republican Rep. Jim Lucas, 58, of Seymour signed an agreement in Jackson Superior Court 2 pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident at the interchange of Interstate 65 and Indiana 11 on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
The plea agreement calls for no additional jail time as long as Lucas completes at least 180 days of supervised probation, including completion of any alcohol or drug abuse treatment as determined by the county probation department.
The plea agreement called for his driver’s license to be suspended for 60 days, although the judge gave Lucas permission to drive on weekdays for trips connected to the awning business he owns.
Lucas also agreed to pay about $4,000 in restitution to the state highway department for damage repairs from the crash.
Lucas, who represents State District 69, was first elected to the Legislature in 2012, and is allowed to keep his position; state law only prohibits those with felony convictions from holding elected office.
Seymour Police officers stopped Lucas, 58, walking near where they found the badly damaged truck, which has a state legislator license plate, parked behind a Seymour carpet store nearly 3 miles from the crash site.
Lucas told a state trooper that he drove away from the crash scene to get help and that he parked behind the business because he didn’t want to leave an oil leak in its front parking lot.
When asked what caused the crash, Lucas told the trooper, “I thought I saw a deer, how’s that?”
The lawmaker said he swerved to miss the animal, losing control of his truck, which police say veered off Indiana 11, down a hill at the interchange with I-65, through a guardrail, and across traffic lanes to hit the median guardrail
A state trooper said Lucas smelled of alcohol, failed several field sobriety tests, and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.097% on a portable breath test device more than an hour after the crash. The state’s legal limit to drive is 0.08%.
