Crime & Safety

Ex-Ramona Detective Gets 90 Days Home Detention in DUI Case

Barbara Crozier also was placed on five years' probation by Riverside County Superior Court judge.

Updated at 10:20 a.m. April 22, 2012

Former Ramona and Santee sheriff’s deputy Barbara Crozier was sentenced Friday to 90 days of home detention and five years of probation, according to U-T San Diego.

A Riverside County Superior Court judge also ordered Crozier to attend a DUI education course, said the U-T, citing Riverside County District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Hall.

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Original story from March 8, 2012:

A San Diego County sheriff's detective who formerly worked in Ramona pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor drunken driving and hit-and-run charges. The charges stem from a pair of Palm Desert crashes last summer.

Find out what's happening in Ramonawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Barbara Jean Crozier, 48, pleaded guilty at the Larson Justice Center in Indio to one count of not reporting an accident, two counts of DUI with injury, two counts of hit-and-run property damage and two counts of DUI.

At her attorney's request, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Harold W. Hopp reduced three of the counts to misdemeanors, according to court records.

Crozier is scheduled to be sentenced March 20. She is free on $50,000 bail.

Witnesses told Riverside County sheriff's deputies that a vehicle driven by a woman struck several parked cars and ran over a pedestrian's foot at an apartment complex parking lot at Fred Waring Drive and Town Center Way on Aug. 30.

"(The victim) yelled at the female driver, whom he could see clearly through the driver's-side window, to stop," according to a declaration in support of the arrest warrant. "He yelled, 'Stop! You ran over my foot!' He said the female driver then drove away south ... without stopping to render aid or see if he was injured."

The witnesses gave investigators a description of the vehicle and its license plate number, said sheriff's Sgt. Joe Borja.

Later that night, deputies received a call that a vehicle had crashed into a water fountain at the entrance of the Marrakesh Country Club at 47000 Marrakesh Drive. The license plate of the vehicle matched the one from the hit- and-run, Borja said.

Crozier had an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her and admitted she had consumed several alcoholic beverages prior to being involved in a traffic collision, according to the declaration, which states a forensic chemist later estimated her blood-alcohol level at around .09 percent.

Crozier was booked at the Indio jail on suspicion of hit-and-run and driving while intoxicated and was released on bail.

The detective, who was assigned to the Santee substation at the time of her arrest, remains an employee of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, spokeswoman Melissa Aquino said. She said she could not comment further, citing confidentiality of personnel records.

Crozier was one of several Sheriff's Department personnel working in Ramona who were named in filed on behalf of a Ramona boy in 2011.

--City News Service contributed to this report.


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