BY JULIE MANGANIS
STAFF WRITER
---- — DANVERS — Katie Weisman got a year of probation after admitting that she drove drunk and fought with a state trooper after she was stopped on Route 1 in Danvers last fall.
She also got a lecture from Salem District Court Judge Matthew Machera, who told the 26-year-old Medford woman to turn around and look at her distraught mother, sitting in the second row of the courtroom.
“See that look on her face?” Machera asked Weisman. “That’s the worst look you will ever see on her face.” He told Weisman he hopes she’ll never have to experience that same feeling with a child of her own someday.
Weisman was arrested after a state trooper saw her veering from lane to lane before hitting a guardrail on Route 1 north on Oct. 25, prosecutor Lynsey Legier told the judge.
It took a quarter of a mile for her to finally stop, in the middle of an exit ramp, said Legier, and Weisman thought at the time that she was on Route 93 in Medford, not Route 1.
Legier told the judge that Weisman launched into a profane tirade against the trooper after she learned she was going to be arrested, and mentioned her firefighter brother. Once in the cruiser, after a struggle, she kicked out the back window, said the prosecutor. A Breathalyzer test found that she had a blood alcohol level of .16, twice the legal limit.
Weisman’s lawyer, Thomas Torrisi, said she has little memory of that night.
“You were completely out of control,” said Machera. “The strength it takes to kick out a window? I don’t think I could do it. You’re extremely lucky you didn’t kill someone or yourself.”
Legier urged the judge to find Weisman guilty in the case, which included charges of drunken driving, resisting arrest, assault and battery on a police officer, failing to stay in marked lanes and malicious destruction. “She shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel,” said Legier.
But Torrisi persuaded the judge to give his client, who has no prior record, a break by continuing the case without a finding for a year, which means that if Weisman stays out of trouble and complies with several conditions, including taking an alcohol safety course, the case will be dismissed.
Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, via email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter @SNJulieManganis.
