He is accused of DUI manslaughter in the death of a bicyclist.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published October 27, 2004
TAMPA - Tampa Bay Storm player Darion Conner, charged with drunken driving three times from 1993 to 2002, was jailed again Tuesday on charges that his SUV struck and killed a Carrollwood bicyclist last month while Conner had a highly elevated blood-alcohol level.
Conner, 37, turned himself in at the Hillsborough Sheriff's substation on Gunn Highway at 1 p.m. and was later booked into the county jail on a charge of DUI manslaughter, said Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder. The second degree felony carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Conner's arrest comes nearly two months after he was involved in an early-morning collision with bicyclist Jonathan Michael Conklin, 32, a lawn maintenance worker whose mother now comforts herself by sleeping beside a box of his ashes.
"He should spend some time in jail," the mother, Istar Ra of New Port Richey, said of Conner. "Any mother will know what I'm saying."
From the beginning, sheriff's investigators suspected Conner was intoxicated at the time of the Sept. 4 crash. Reder said that at about 1:50 a.m., Conner veered off Gunn Highway in his 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser. He swerved into the bicycle lane and hit Conklin, throwing him more than 200 feet.
Deputies at the scene said Conner, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound offensive and defensive lineman, failed the field sobriety test and smelled of alcohol.
Authorities waited for toxicology results before charging Conner with DUI manslaughter. His blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash was .273, Reder said. That is more than three times the level at which the state presumes impairment.
"Once we got the results, we called him and said, "It's time to go,' " Reder said.
Conner, who lives at 9078 Lake Chase Island Way in northwest Hillsborough, was held without bail at the Orient Road Jail, according to jail records.
Storm head coach and general manager Tim Marcum released a brief statement Tuesday: "We are aware of the situation with Darion and once again express our sincere condolences to the victim's family. We will let everything run its course through the judicial system, and once he has satisfied those obligations we will take appropriate action. Regardless, Darion is a member of the Storm family and right now our concern is for Darion as a person, not as a football player."
Conner, a former National Football League starter who joined the Storm five years ago, has been in trouble before for drinking while driving.
Twice within a two-month period in 1993, while playing for the Atlanta Falcons, Conner was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.
In one case, a Gwinnett County police officer found Conner slouched over the steering wheel of his car. Sobriety tests showed Conner had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19. When the officer asked Conner for his driver's license, Conner instead pulled out a large amount of cash and then shuffled some credit cards, according to the police report.
Two years ago, Conner's license was suspended for one year after a DUI arrest in July 2002, state driving records indicate. According to jail records, he refused to have his blood alcohol level tested at the scene.
Staff researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.
