Pinal County Attorney Elect Lando Voyles says his highly experienced pick for chief criminal deputy, Richard Wintory, will "lead from the front."
That's going to be especially true when Wintory's behind the wheel.
A check of public records shows that Wintory appears to have racked up five traffic violations in the past two years. That's above-average for any motorist.
We made repeated phone calls to Wintory and Voyles about the matter this week, but neither man returned the messages.
Wintory's a veteran prosecutor who worked for the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office during the trial of Terry Nichols, an accomplice in the bombing of the Murrah federal building. He's considered an expert on border crimes, having worked as a senior prosecutor in the Pima County Attorney's Office in Tucson. And he's been challenged strongly in his personal life, including taking care of his disabled wife and recovering from a serious head injury in 2009.
With that kind of record, we wouldn't give him too serious of a time over a bit of lead-footing. Still, Wintory and other law enforcement officials are held to a higher standard in society when it comes to these things. Someone who's made a career busting people for breaking the rules ought to be more careful about breaking the rules, in other words.
It's certainly fair game to ask him about the driving record we found in court records:
* A complaint - apparently a traffic violation notice, possibly from a photo-enforcement system -- was filed with the El Mirage Municipal Court on November 21.
* Wintory paid a fine for a civil traffic complaint filed with Tucson city court in April.
* He failed to stop for a red light in July of 2011 and was nailed by photo enforcement. He went to traffic school and paid a fine.
* He paid a fine after receiving a Tucson photo enforcement citation back in December of 2010.
* He paid a fine for an unspecified traffic violation he committed in September of 2010.
Wintory expects to handle numerous cases himself as Voyles' chief criminal deputy.
Defendants in Pinal County can probably expect fairly speedy trials.
