Council member seeks to have case dismissed
By Rochelle Moore
Published in News on September 18, 2016 12:19 AM
Goldsboro Councilman Antonio Williams appeared in traffic court Friday for a driving while license revoked charge and sought to have the case dismissed.
Williams said he is not guilty of the charges but was unable to have the case dismissed. District Court Judge Les Turner said he had no authority to dismiss the case during the pretrial proceeding, which allowed defendants a chance to pay fines or request a trial date.
Williams, who waited two hours after trying to talk with an assistant district attorney and the district attorney, went before the judge with a folder of documents. He pulled out paperwork to show he has a valid New York driver's license and documents showing he's worked to clear traffic citations in other counties.
"The only one with the authority to dismiss your case, at this juncture in the proceedings, which is pretrial, are the elected district attorney, Mr. (Matthew) Delbridge, or one of his assistants, which I only see Mr. (Curtis) Stackhouse in the courtroom," Turner said. "I don't have any authority to dismiss anything at this point."
Williams talked with Delbridge twice but both conversations ended with Williams walking away.
"I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Williams," Delbridge said. "He presented his documents to me, which I had already an opportunity to review, and I had discerned that his license was, in fact, revoked here in North Carolina."
Williams said he just wanted to be treated fairly. Turner told Williams that his best recourse is to seek resolution during a court trial.
"I think this is kind of going too far for a traffic infraction when I had a legitimate license," Williams said. "I don't understand why the court wouldn't resolve it today."
Delbridge said he tried to advise Williams on how to handle the case, but was "shut down."
"He wouldn't let me proceed as to offering my opinion, which would have been -- you can have a license in New York. You can have a license in Hawaii or Europe, but if your privileges to drive in North Carolina has been suspended or revoked, that license does not entitle you to drive.
"His license, his privilege to drive in North Carolina, have been continuously in (these stages) since 1994."
Delbridge said Williams has avoided facing the traffic citations for years.
"Instead of getting a North Carolina driver's license, which would cause him to have to comply with all these cases that he's avoided answering in a court of law, he's just gotten ID cards here in North Carolina for a period of years and secured a New York driver's license," Delbridge said.
State Division of Motor Vehicles spokesperson Marge Howell said Thursday that Williams had an outstanding 1994 failure to appear charge in Wayne County related to a traffic citation. The failure to appear triggered later driving suspensions, and Williams is recorded by the DMV, as having a permanently suspended New York driver's license since 2007, Howell said.
"The failure to appear in court has stayed on his record from 1994 until Sept. 2, 2016, so he went 22 years with a failure to appear on his record," Howell said.
"If you get any moving violations when you get a failure to appear on your record, your license can be permanently suspended. It creates a situation where, if you get too may moving violations, you can get a permanent suspension."
Williams said he has never had a North Carolina driver's license, which DMV records confirm. He claims that some of the records are wrong, including the 1994 charge, which he said is not his.
"That wasn't me," Williams told the News-Argus.
On Sept. 2, the case was disposed, court records show. It's only one of several cases Williams has worked to clear in recent weeks.
Williams said in court Friday that some of his charges are wrong.
"Those were not me," Williams said. "They were false. I have cleared all of them. I have all the copies."
Court records show several speeding tickets and other motor vehicle citations through the years, including speeding tickets in Wayne County in 2002 and 2003 and in Greene County in 2006. All court costs and fines were previously paid.
In 2013, Williams was charged in Carteret County with driving while license revoked. The charge was later dismissed.
DMV is working to sort out Williams' driving record, which is complicated due to several different identification numbers and name spellings. Some records list a New York driver's license number while others list a DMV control number, Howell said.
"Because his record has been all over the place, they are trying to rebuild it," Howell said. "DMV has to rebuild his driving record. His records are very complex."
Howell said DMV records show that Williams had a 2006 speeding ticket and driving while license revoked charge in Perquimans County, which led to the permanent suspension of his New York license.
Williams tried to present to the judge Friday a signed document from Perquimans County court officials stating that he has no traffic citation record in the county. Howell said the offense is on his DMV record, but Williams cleared the case recently.
"He complied with the driving while license revoked charge he had from the Perquimans case on Sept. 8," Howell said.
Williams went to court Friday after having a warrant for his arrest served on Sept. 6 for failure to appear in court in June.
He was originally set to appear in court to face charges of driving while license revoked and failure to burn headlamps.
On April 1, at 12:01 a.m., Williams was stopped by a Wayne County sheriff's deputy after pulling out of the Handy Mart on U.S. 70, without turning his headlights on, according to the citation report.
The officer watched Williams make a U-turn and drive east on U.S. 70. He was pulled over after the officer noticed Williams' vehicle drop to 10 miles below the speed limit. A DMV check showed that Williams' license was suspended. In the report, the officer wrote that the "defendant was extremely argumentative and threatened" a lawsuit.
Williams said he didn't go to court in June because he spoke with Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce and believed the issue was cleared up.
Pierce refuted the notion that he said anything to indicate Williams' charges would have been cleared after speaking with him.
"I at no time said anything that would indicate he would not need to handle his charges in the courtroom," Pierce said.
On Friday, Turner set a court date for Williams on Nov. 14 at 9 a.m.