Arizona highway patrol officers stopped a well-known Pinal County Sheriff's Department lieutenant driving over 90 mph three times without citing her once, says an internal-affairs report on the incidents.
Usually, if a driver is cited three times for criminal speeding within a one-year period, jail time is the result, a local traffic-law expert said.
Criminal speeding is when a driver travels more than 85 miles an hour.
During the three incidents, which occurred between mid-2010 and March 3, 2011, Lt. Tamatha Villar was driving on Interstate 10 or its frontage roads northwest of Tucson in the area between Red Rock and Picacho.
The last time, on March 3, Villar was driving at least 92 mph on the frontage road and had a 10-year-old child in the front passenger seat. Villar, who served as the department spokesman under Sheriff Paul Babeu until June 2010, received a written reprimand in which she was told to "make a conscious effort to observe and obey the posted speed limit."
The Sheriff's Department released the report this week in response to public-records requests.
DPS officers are allowed to issue tickets at their own discretion, but a DPS spokesman said Villar probably should have received a ticket after the second incident.
"Looking at it from an agency standpoint, it would've been the expectation that she had gotten a ticket," said DPS spokesman Bart Graves.
However, the officers were dealing with a high-ranking officer and might not have initially known if she was on or off duty, Graves said.
"In that sector we work with local law enforcement," he said. "It's a difficult call for officers."
Ultimately the disciplinary action Villar received from the Sheriff's Department is likely more severe than a traffic ticket, Graves said.
However, the internal-affairs report, authored by a Pinal County sheriff's captain, notes that in each of the cases, Villar's speeding could have been treated as a misdemeanor crime, not a civil traffic violation. In most cases, if a person gets three criminal speeding violations within one year, they would get a jail sentence, said Tucson criminal-defense attorney James Nesci
"Typically the first time, the judge will probably fine you pretty nastily but not send you to jail. Second time, you might go to jail. Third time? You're going to jail," Nesci said.
The first incident occurred in mid-2010, the report says, but the date isn't specified because the officer who stopped her never documented the stop. A Tucson-based DPS major was driving to Phoenix for a meeting when he noticed a sport-utility vehicle passing him on the frontage road adjacent to westbound I-10, according to the documents.
The officer said he was traveling at 75 mph on the interstate and he estimated the SUV, which was Villar's unmarked patrol vehicle, was going about 90 mph. He stopped her at the Picacho exit and Villar told him she was speeding because she was late for a meeting.
"She was very pleasant to him and he asked her to slow down and they both left the area," the report says.
In the second incident, on Jan. 11, another DPS officer clocked her going in the low 90s on Interstate 10 near Picacho Peak.
After stopping Villar, "He asked her to slow down and drive safely and they both departed the area," the report says.
In the third incident, an officer was traveling between 80 and 85 mph on eastbound I-10 near Picacho on March 4 when he saw the SUV heading east on the north frontage road gaining distance on him.
He sped to more than 100 mph just to catch up to the vehicle and called for assistance from other DPS officers. He estimated the vehicle was traveling at more than 100 mph.
Villar, who had her son with her in the front passenger seat of the SUV, told the authorities she was heading home from work and had just picked up her son from school.
She was not reprimanded for picking up her son from school because county employees with take-home vehicles are allowed to run personal errands if they are commuting between work and home, according to the county's vehicle-use policy.
After the third speeding incident, a DPS captain made a formal complaint to a Sheriff's Department chief deputy, Steve Henry, which led to the internal investigation.
The letter, which was issued by a Sheriff's Department captain, threatened more severe disciplinary action if improvements were not made by Nov. 30.
Nesci said jail time isn't the only threat if a person accumulates three criminal speeding citations in a one-year period. The driver's license also will be revoked for 90 days unless the driver attends a 16-hour traffic survival school, he said.
