Four days after Tiger Woods was arrested for DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a DUI test following a two-car crash near his Jupiter Island, Florida, home, the 15-time major champion entered a plea of not guilty in court, demanding a trial by jury.
Woods’ attorney, Douglas Duncan, also entered the plea as Woods waived his arraignment, aiming to proceed to trial immediately. The defense will have 10 days to file motions.
Duncan represented Woods following his 2017 DUI arrest, which resulted in reduced charges of reckless driving and Woods being placed on probation, having to take a DUI diversion program and completing 50 hours of community service.
Woods’ plea came hours after the Martin County Sheriff’s Office released an affidavit providing further details on the incident, which occurred on a two-lane residential street and saw Woods flip his vehicle onto its side.
After emerging from his Range Rover’s passenger-side door, Woods was interviewed by police in the back of an air-conditioned vehicle. Deputy Tatiana Levenar described him as “sweating profusely” with “lethargic and slow” movements.
Woods claimed he was driving from his home in Jupiter and looking down at his cell phone at the time of the incident, not realizing the vehicle in front of him, a pick-up truck carrying a pressure washer trailer, had slowed down.
Another deputy found two white hydrocodone pills in Woods’ pants pocket. When asked whether he took prescription medication that morning, Woods told police, “I take a few.” The names of those medications were redacted from the affidavit.
Woods agreed to a field sobriety test, but after the deputy observed him “limping and stumbling to the right,” the 15-time major winner informed the deputy that he had seven surgeries on his back and 20 surgeries on his leg. The deputy then had Woods complete the test seated on the bumper of the police cruiser. After being asked to remove his glasses, Woods’ eyes were described as “bloodshot and glassy” with his pupils “extremely dilated.”
Woods was taken through numerous tasks in the field sobriety test. Among them, he was asked to follow a pen with his eyes but “continuously moved his head from side to side and had to be instructed several times to keep his head straight.” He was also asked to clap his hands and count on each clap in a different test, but “he counted out loud, ‘one,’ ‘two,’ but did not make contact with his hands between each count.”
“Based on my observations of Woods, how he performed the exercises and based on my training, knowledge, and experience, I believed that [Woods’] normal [faculties] were impaired, and he was unable to safely operate the motor vehicle,” Levenar wrote in her report.
Woods was taken to a local hospital after his arrest but refused all medical treatment. He spent eight hours in Martin County Jail before being released on $1,000 bond later Friday evening.
