San Diego Co. sheriff’s detective pleads guilty to Palm Desert DUI

A San Diego County sheriff’s detective pleaded guilty today to misdemeanor drunken driving and hit-and-run charges stemming from a pair of Palm Desert crashes last summer.

Barbara Jean Crozier, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of not reporting an accident, two counts of DUI with injury, two counts of hit-and-run property damage and two counts of DUI.

At her attorney’s request, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Harold W. Hopp reduced three of the counts to misdemeanors, according to court records.

Crozier is scheduled to be sentenced March 20. She is free on $50,000 bail.

Witnesses told Riverside County sheriff’s deputies that a vehicle driven by a woman struck several parked cars and ran over a pedestrian’s foot at an apartment complex parking lot at Fred Waring Drive and Town Center Way last Aug. 30.

“(The victim) yelled at the female driver, whom he could see clearly through the driver’s-side window, to stop,” according to a declaration in support of arrest warrant. “He yelled, `Stop! You ran over my foot!’ He said the female driver then drove away south … without stopping to render aid or see if he was injured.”

The witnesses gave investigators a description of the vehicle and its license plate number, said sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Borja.

Later that night, deputies received a call that a vehicle had crashed into a water fountain at the entrance of the Marrakesh Country Club at 47-000 Marrakesh Drive. The license plate of the vehicle matched the one from the hit- and-run, Borja said.

Crozier had “an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her and through her own admonition she had consumed several alcoholic beverages prior to being involved in a traffic collision,” according to the declaration, which says a forensic chemist later estimated her blood-alcohol level at around .9 percent.

Crozier was booked at the Indio jail on suspicion of hit-and-run and driving while intoxicated and released on bail.

The detective, who was assigned to the Santee substation at the time of her arrest, remains an employee of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, spokeswoman Melissa Aquino said. She said she could not comment further, citing confidentiality of personnel records.