Florida man accused of driving drunk while dropping kid off at school
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FRUITLAND PARK, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) – A 47-year-old Oxford, Florida man is charged with DUI and child neglect deputies say he was driving drunk while dropping a child off at school.
Deputies say 911 calls poured into the Lake County Sheriff’s office yesterday morning reporting Christopher Beauchemin, 47, driving recklessly near Spring Lake Road in Fruitland Park.
“It went off the road two times, in a short period of time,” said a 911 caller.
“He called, based on the suspect coming up and almost running into the back of him, went around him and them ran him off the road, he said he watched the suspect and he almost ran into two or three other people head on,” said Sgt. Fred Jones, with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
What’s worse the 911 caller told deputies there was a child in the car.
“He said he saw a young juvenile male in the back seat and he could tell that the kid was afraid,” said Jones.
Witnesses told deputies Beauchemin dropped the child of at the Holy Trinty School in Fruitland Park and then fell asleep.
“The suspect was passed out behind the wheel, and so the officer taped on the glass, the guy woke up and he threw the car into drive and went into the fence,” Jones said.
You can still see the damage to the fence from the crash, Beauchemin was arrested and deputies say he was driving at nearly three times the legal limit — sheriff’s officials call the incident disturbing.
“When you have a kid in a car , be it your kid or someone else’s kid, you’re their protector , you’re the person that kid looks up to, to save them but here we have this kid, he was petrified, so it’s very disturbing,” Jones said.
Serial DUI driver sentenced to 23 years for crash that killed dad, son going to college orientation
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A serial drunk driver from Florida has been sentenced to just over 23 years in prison for a DUI crash that killed a father and son heading to a college orientation last summer.
Leslie Gehret, 41, entered pleas of no contest Monday in an Orange County court to two counts of DUI manslaughter and one count each of vehicular homicide, driving with a suspended license and causing serious bodily injury or death.
As part of a plea deal, she was sentenced to 280 months in prison, followed by 12 months of probation stemming from the alcohol-fueled July 2023 crash that killed Shane Lloyd, 50, and his son Jakob Lloyd, 19.
Once she’s out on probation, Gehret will have to complete 50 hours of community service and attend DUI school.
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The sentence also includes a permanent driver’s license suspension, according to the Office of the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit.
On July 9, Shane and Jakob Lloyd, traveling from Colorado, were making a turn in Orlando en route to the University of Central Florida’s campus, where the son was set to begin classes in the fall, when Gehret ran a red light and slammed into their car, causing it to flip over multiple times, prosecutors said.
Shane Lloyd died at the site of the crash, while his son succumbed to his injuries at a hospital. Gehret walked away from the collision with only minor injuries.
Information obtained from Gehret’s car’s electronic data recorder reportedly found that she was doing 94 mph at the moment of impact.
When deputies caught up with Gehret at the hospital, they noted that her eyes were bloodshot and she smelled of booze, according to prosecutors. Testing later determined that the woman’s blood alcohol content was above the legal limit for driving even 5 hours after the wreck.
Gehret was also found to be driving with a suspended license while serving a probation related to an earlier DUI arrest — one of three she had racked up over the past decade.
Gehret, previously of New Rochelle, New York, was sued for damages in 2022 for a separate wreck that left Alexander Chapman with a “permanent injury,” according to court records.
