A Woodbury woman was charged Friday with speeding through downtown St. Paul and causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage to equipment for the new light-rail line.
Deborah A. Miller, 53, was charged by the city attorney's office with three misdemeanors — reckless driving, careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident — in connection with the April 26 incident in the Lowertown neighborhood.
The mystery about how the rail equipment was damaged went on for weeks. In mid-May, police released surveillance video showing a flatbed truck on the tracks on that stretch of 4th Street at 3 a.m., hauling a Toyota. The truck's former owner saw it and helped police find the truck and ultimately the driver of the car.
Police learned Miller told her insurance company that her car hit a pothole or "fell into" one or two holes, the criminal complaint read.
According to the complaint:
Miller and a co-worker were drinking at a bar that night. The co-worker believed that Miller was intoxicated and offered to drive her home. She declined.
Later, Miller called the co-worker and said she had hit something with enough force to deploy her air bags.
Authorities tracked the damaged car to a salvage lot. Analysis of its computerized diagnostics determined that the car was going 36 to 38 miles per hour the wrong way before it struck the track equipment.