IS there anyone that thinks Evans should NOT be fired?
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [gatornews] [SUN / A.P.]: 7/2 15:43 --- Police report:
UGA AD urged officer not to arrest [A.P. / GREG BLUESTEIN]
From: "Shane Ford" <goufgat...@bellsouth.net>
Date: Fri, July 02, 2010 10:42 pm
To: "GATORNEWS" <gatorn...@googlegroups.com>
Police report: UGA AD urged officer not to arrest
By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer
Published: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 3:43 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 3:43 p.m.
ATLANTA (AP) - University of Georgia athletic director Damon Evans
repeatedly referred to his position at the school before his arrest
on a drunken driving charge and asked the patrol officer if there
was ``anything you can do without arresting me,'' according to a
police report released Friday.
Evans told the Georgia State Patrol officer several times he was
the school's athletic director before he was arrested late
Wednesday and charged with DUI and failure to maintain a lane,
according to the report. Also arrested with him was 28-year-old
Courtney Fuhrmann, who was charged with disorderly conduct.
``I am not trying to bribe you but I am the athletic director of
the University of Georgia,'' Evans said, according to the officer
identified in the report as M. Cabe.
The officer also said that Evans asked to be taken to a motel
instead of jail or to be let off with a warning. According to the
report, Evans later said: ``I am not trying to bribe you, but is
there anything you can do without arresting me?''
In the report, the officer noted he found a ``red pair of lady's
panties between (Evans') legs.'' When he asked Evans, a 40-year-old
married father of two children, what he was doing with the
underwear, Evans said: ``She took them off and I held them because
I was just trying to get her home,'' according to the report.
Evans told the officer that Fuhrmann was nothing more than a
friend, according to the report. But the officer said that Fuhrmann
later told him that the two had been seeing each other for ``only a
week or so.''
``Just to let you know, it will be erased because he is the
athletic director of UGA and he has that power,'' Fuhrmann told the
officer, according to the report.
She was charged with disorderly conduct after police said she
repeatedly ignored warnings to stay inside the 2009 BMW while the
trooper was conducting the field sobriety test and later acting
``combative'' in the back seat of the patrol car, according to the
report.
``I apologize and don't want to use my influence but she is trying
to protect me,'' the officer said Evans told him.
Fuhrmann told the Associated Press on Friday the charges against
her are a ``misunderstanding from what the media is portraying it
as'' but declined to speak further.
Evans and his attorney Steve Weiner did not immediately return
calls seeking comment, but Evans apologized for the incident during
a news conference in Athens on Thursday and said he ``failed
miserably.''
``My behavior and my actions are not indicative of what we teach
our student athletes,'' he said. ``My actions have put a black
cloud over our storied program.''
School president Michael Adams said in a statement Thursday he was
extremely disappointed, but will not decide on disciplinary
measures until there is a full review by the university staff and
legal office. A UGA spokesman declined to comment Friday on the
allegations in the police report.
A bleary-eyed Evans told the officer he drank two vodka martinis at
a restaurant and another at a nearby bar, according to the report.
The officer noted that Evans had ``red, bloodshot, watery eyes and
droopy eyelids'' and that he fumbled through his cards and dropped
some of the items before he handed over his license.
``I feel pretty good,'' he told the officer, before laughing for no
apparent reason, according to the report. The trooper said Evans
later told him: ``We go through life and we all drink and jump in a
car.''
Evans - a former Georgia football player - became head of the
athletic department in 2004, replacing Vince Dooley, who was forced
to step aside after a nasty spat with Adams. Dooley had been at the
school for 40 years, including 25 years as athletic director.
Evans became the Southeastern Conference's first black athletic
director and immediately shook up the department. He bolstered the
department's bottom line but also reduced the number of associate
and assistant athletics directors and fired three of Dooley's
longtime lieutenants.
He was the public face of the school's athletic department, and
starred in a taped message played at every home football game that
urges fans not to drive under the influence. ``If you drink and
drive, you lose,'' he says.
Evans, who is set to appear in Atlanta Municipal Court on July 12,
was arrested minutes before a new five-year contract extension that
raised his annual pay to $550,000 was to take effect. By the time
he was escorted to the Atlanta jail, the officer said in the
report, Evans began to ``cry uncontrollably.''
--
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--
GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY!
1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball
Champions
2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball
Champions
2008 National Football Champions |
Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel
(1996),
Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us
