Chris Soules, a former leading man from the US version of The Bachelor, has failed in an application to have felony charges against him dismissed, meaning that he will face trial for leaving the scene of an accident following a crash that left an Iowa man dead.
Soules, a farmer who appeared on Season 19 of the dating show and later on Dancing With The Stars, was arrested in 2016 after allegedly crashing his pickup truck into a tractor driven by 66-year-old Kenneth Mosher, running it into a ditch and killing him.
He called 911 and waited for first responders, but left before police arrived. He was arrested some hours later and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal car crash, which is a Class D felony in Iowa and carries a maximum five years in prison and a $7000 fine.
In a motion to have the charges dismissed, his legal team argued that state law does not specifically require drivers in fatal crashes to wait for police, saying that:
“… because Mr. Soules indisputably stopped his vehicle, returned to the injured driver, contacted law enforcement, provided aid to the injured driver, arranged for medical treatment for the injured driver, remained until emergency personnel responded to the injured party, and provided identification data, the State’s charge must be dismissed.”
In January, Judge Andrea Dryer denied the motion to dismiss the charge; his lawyers appealed the decision to the State Supreme Court, and this week, the court declined to hear the appeal, meaning that Chris Soules will still have to answer to the felony charge against him.
Court documents indicated that Soules may have been in possession of alcoholic beverages or open alcohol containers at the time of the crash, but toxicology tests on urine and blood samples found no detectable traces of drugs or alcohol in his system.
He will face a jury trial for leaving the scene of the accident, with a date to be set this coming Monday.
