Jury Trial Set For Commissioner’s DUI Case: Manatee Court Records

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — The date for a jury trial in the DUI case of Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse has been set for early next year.

A pre-trial conference will take place by Zoom on Jan. 18, followed by the trial on Feb. 6 at the Sarasota County Judicial Center, Manatee County court records show.

Kruse, represented by Sarasota attorney Jeffrey A. Haynes, plead not guilty to driving under the influence in July.

The charge is related to an April incident in which he crashed his truck into a tree near his Bradenton home. (Watch a portion of Manatee County Sheriff's Office bodycam footage from the incident below.)

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The case was initially assigned to Judge Jacqueline B. Steele, who recused herself. It was reassigned to Judge Erika Nikla Quartermaine.

In the April 20 traffic accident, the commissioner drove into a tree in the Greyhawk Landing community.

Deputies didn't arrest the commissioner or file charges against him the day of the single-vehicle crash. Instead, they let his wife drive him to their nearby home. She later came back to the scene to collect his traffic citation and have the truck towed, evidence shows.

Kruse paid a $166 fine and attended traffic school, according to court records.

Following the crash, the sheriff's office submitted evidence to State Attorney Ed Brodsky’s office for consideration. A new traffic citation charging him with driving under the influence was issued in June.

"Please bear in mind all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The State Attorney's Office will not be making any comments while this case is pending," Brodsky’s office said in a statement when the charge was announced.

The offense codes included on the sheriff's office incident report from the crash are DUI alcohol or drugs — noted as the primary offense — and public traffic accident.

Reviewing the bodycam footage from deputies that responded to the crash, MCSO Investigator Benjamin Main noted, "George (Kruse) appears to have glassy eyes, slurred speech, clammy wet skin and droopy eyelids."

In the recording of the 911 call automatically made from the crash notification system in his truck, he didn't respond to the operator at times. Then, minutes into the call, his wife, who identified herself as Jessica Kruse, can be heard asking him to leave the truck.

"Hey, are you OK? I need you to get in my car. I need you to get in my car right now," she said.

When asked for the location of the crash, Jessica Kruse told dispatchers, "We're good."

Bodycam footage recorded by Lt. Nicholas Pruitt, the first to respond to the scene after other drivers alerted him to the crash, showed George Kruse in the back of his wife's SUV by the time the officer arrived.

Jessica Kruse, who was driving behind her husband in a separate vehicle, told the deputy her husband swerved, hitting the tree and setting off the airbag, the video shows.

"Now, he's kind of a little out of it," she is heard saying.

George Kruse said, "I was coming through the gate, and somebody cut me off and blew right past me. And I tried to, like, hit my brakes and curve around them and just cut a curb."

During his investigation, Main found the commissioner told a different version of this story to his Progressive insurance claim agent. George Kruse told the agent he swerved to miss a small animal in the road, which caused him to hit the tree, according to the MCSO investigative report.

Earlier this year, George Kruse commented on the crash to WFLA, saying, "This is under investigation. I've had this discussion before. … The sheriff's department does an excellent job. I respect what the sheriff's department does. It is being passed to Ed Brodsky and the State Attorney's Office. I respect what he does. Both of them are going to do their job. I am not going to interfere with their investigation and whatever the outcome is ... we will deal with at that point in time."

In his bodycam footage, Pruitt told dispatchers, "The driver is impaired of something; however, he was not in the vehicle when I got on scene. He was in his wife's vehicle."

The lieutenant later told Jessica Kruse that her husband was "obviously impaired" and "you need to just talk to him about that."

The commissioner was likely speeding as well, Pruitt added, noting the "crush depth" of the truck against the tree.

"That kind of crush depth would not have happened if he was only traveling 25 mph," the lieutenant said in the video.

Because George Kruse wasn't in his truck and no witnesses stayed to give deputies a statement, Pruitt is also heard in the video telling the commissioner's wife that she could take her husband home.

In his bodycam footage, the lieutenant is never seen giving George Kruse a Breathalyzer test or conducting a field sobriety test.

In a comment provided to Main during his investigation, Pruitt wrote, "A field sobriety test nor a breath test was administered as there was no independent witness to the crash on scene that could place Mr. Kruse in the vehicle under active physical control of the vehicle. It was not learned until a few days later of the entire 911 call that clearly places Mr. Kruse inside the vehicle and the sole occupant."

A capias arrest request was submitted to the state attorney's office "with this new evidence in mind," he added.

When speaking with her minutes after the crash, Pruitt also told Jessica Kruse, according to bodycam footage, "I know who your husband is, and this could have turned out very badly and he just needs to be more cognizant of that."

The lieutenant added, "The benefit here is that nobody of the seven people that stopped and told me about this (accident) stayed to say he was in that car. Had that been the case, my traffic units would have been here working the crash, working the DUI, and he would have gone to jail."

Watch a portion of the bodycam footage from the incident below: