Man with multiple DWIs back in jail
Owens, acquitted in 2011 crash that killed four teens, was released a week ago on prior charge
A man acquitted of charges involving an alcohol-related crash that killed four Santa Fe teens in 2009 is back behind bars after the latest in a series of run-ins with law enforcement.
Santa Fe police arrested Scott Owens around 3:15 a.m. Saturday near the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Cerrillos Road and booked him on suspicion of driving with a revoked license and lacking proof of insurance.
“His license plate light was not working,” Lt. Sean Strahon said of the reason for the traffic stop. “He was not under the influence. But he was driving a vehicle without an ignition interlock device and had no insurance documents for the vehicle.”
Jail records indicate the arrest came
only a week after he completed a roughly five-month sentence for violating terms of his probation in a 2016 drunken-driving case.
During his January sentencing, Owens had pleaded with the judge for a light sentence, saying, “I do have a hard time being in [jail] based on previous time spent there.”
Owens, who is in his late 30s, was first convicted of DWI in 2001.
In 2009 he was charged with four counts of vehicular homicide after he admitted he had been drinking before the vehicle he was driving collided with a carload of teenagers just after midnight on June 28, 2009, on Old Las Vegas Highway. Four of the teens were killed and one seriously injured.
A jury in April 2011 acquitted Owens of the charges after failing to find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused the crash. Prosecutors had not charged him with drunken driving in that case.
The following year he pleaded guilty to his second DWI following a traffic stop in which he was accused of speeding down a Santa Fe street in a friend’s vehicle.
In August 2016, Owens pleaded guilty to his third drunken-driving charge and a harassment charge stemming from an incident in which an ex-girlfriend called police to report that he was stalking her. Owens received a suspended sentence of nearly a year in jail as well as three years of supervised probation.
A fourth DWI offense was filed against him in Durango, Colo., in October 2017, following an incident in which multiple police vehicles pursued him through the streets of the city. Officers said he was weaving in and out of traffic in a white pickup bearing fictitious plates and with no ignition interlock device to prevent him from driving after consuming alcohol.
Lt. Strahon said Saturday that Santa Fe police contacted authorities in Colorado to make them aware he might have violated terms of his release in that case.
Strahon said that at the time of his arrest early Saturday, Owens was driving a Chevy Silverado pickup registered to a local car sales lot. That business was closed on Saturday and efforts to reach a representative for comment were unsuccessful.