A jury found a 37-year-old North Carolina man guilty Wednesday of misdemeanor obstruction of justice after hearing testimony from two James City County police officers who said the man interfered as they tried to help an intoxicated woman at Busch Gardens in October.
Kill Devil Hills resident Jeremy David Adams represented himself in the trial. He said he acted with good cause during the incident, telling the jury he wanted to use his emergency medical technician skills from the U.S. Army to help his intoxicated friend after she fell face-first from a bench and sustained a cut to her head.
Following the conviction, the jury sentenced Adams to a $500 fine and no active jail time. He must also pay his court costs, which are more than $1,000.
Adams’ testimony clashed with that of the two police officers. Senior Investigator William Gibbs said he was working at Busch Gardens Oct. 13 as part of an off-duty assignment where police officers assist other agencies with “the color of our office” when he heard a radio call around 8:30 p.m. about a disorderly couple heading toward the England parking lot. He said he went to the area with a Busch Gardens security officer, where he saw Adams escorting the woman up a hill.
Gibbs said the woman fell and he approached Adams to assist him in getting her upright. He said he noticed a “heavy smell of alcohol on her person” along with glassy eyes and slurred speech. Gibbs asked the woman to sit on a bench, and after she sat down, she fell forward and struck her head on the concrete pavement.
At that point, Lt. Eric Peterson, another James City County Police officer working at Busch Gardens that night, arrived on scene, Gibbs said. He said as he talked to the woman, Adams told him he “didn’t have the right” to talk to the woman.
“He said he would take care of her,” Gibbs said. “He was fairly calm, but that changed to a more aggressive nature.”
A call was made to Busch Gardens emergency medical services. Gibbs said he focused on the woman while Peterson interacted with Adams.
Peterson said Adams blocked his path to the woman. He said he told Adams to move several times but that Adams told him he did not have to follow his orders. He described Adams as “very hostile, aggressive and abrupt.”
Peterson said he then went to arrest Adams, who flexed his arms and told him he could not be arrested because he was in the military. Peterson, who is retired from the U.S. Army, testified he had received military combat lifesaver training.
“I couldn’t get to her to give her first aid,” Peterson told the jury.
The testimony of the two police officers differed from Adams, who said his chief concern was helping his friend with her injury. Adams told the jury he served in the U.S. Army for 17 years as a team medic. He said he used his skills repeatedly on deployment, including in Iraq.
“I was pretty scared about this,” Adams told the jury. “My friend was in great danger. My reaction was I could help.”
Adams, who told the jury he had not consumed any alcohol — and offered to take a blood-alcohol test that night to prove it — said he initially applied pressure to his friend’s head after she fell face-first to the concrete. He said he continued to apply pressure until he felt a hand on his shoulder pull him away from his friend.
“I said, ‘Let me go,’” Adams said. “This person didn’t say anything to me.”
Adams identified the person who pulled him away as Peterson. He said Peterson repeatedly told him to sit down and that he told him he needed to help his friend. Peterson testified Adams never told him he wanted to provide first aid to his friend.
“I started getting furious,” Adams said. “She was losing more blood.”
He said he eventually asked the police if they would help her if he allowed them to arrest him and that they said yes, at which point he allowed them to arrest him. Peterson said it took three minutes to secure Adams, whom he arrested on a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. That charge was later amended to obstruction of justice in Williamsburg-James City County District Court.
The prosecutor, Williamsburg-James City County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Joshua DeFord, questioned Adams after his testimony. During the questioning, Adams said he was a state national and a private attorney general who investigates violations of law by government officials.
“My oath is to the Constitution,” he said.
He said a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed him to resist illegal arrests by police but did not offer a specific case from the court that said so. He said the police officers misremembered what happened during their interaction with him.
DeFord told the jury the police officers’ honor was on the line when they testify in criminal cases and they would not lie on the witness stand with their jobs dependent on their truthful testimony.
“What the defendant did was get in Lt. Peterson’s way and told them they couldn’t talk to this woman,” DeFord told the jury during his closing argument. “He obstructed them.”
The jury, composed of five men and two women, took about an hour to reach their verdict.
Misdemeanor cases typically don’t reach circuit court. This case went before the jury because Adams appealed a decision from district court, the lower court which often handles misdemeanor offenses. He was sentenced to a $250 fine by that court, prompting him to appeal the matter to circuit court.
DeFord told WYDaily “we wanted a conviction for our obstruction charge, and that’s what we got,” noting he was not surprised by the verdict.
When approached for comment, Adams referenced a pair of questions the jury attempted to ask after the case had been handed to them. Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court Judge Michael McGinty told the jurors to handle the case as it had been given to them. The questions, which dealt with the nature of the charge, showed “they felt I didn’t need to be punished,” Adams said.
“It seems justice goes to those who can pay,” Adams said, noting his self-representation. “It’s terrible to have a record following you when you didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t hurt anybody.”
Adams ran for a seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2012. In the May Republican primary for that election, he received 26.64 percent of the vote for the District Six seat, good for third place, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. He did not appear in the general election in November.
District Six is in the northern part of the state and includes Reidsville and Roxboro. The district borders Durham and Greensboro.
WYDaily’s Marie Albiges contributed to the reporting in this story.
