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Video Surfaces In Bollea Case
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Published: November 10, 2007
CLEARWATER - Videotape footage taken just moments before Nick Bollea crashed his Toyota Supra will help the son of famed wrestler Hulk Hogan, according to his lawyer.
Police say the accident, which critically injured Bollea's friend John Graziano, happened while he was racing. Bollea's attorney, however, said the video paints a much less dramatic picture of the two drivers' actions than is described by eyewitnesses in court documents.
Clearwater police never asked for the tape from the Jeep parts store where a surveillance camera captured the two drivers' actions Aug. 26. The tape was acquired first by the defense team hired by Bollea's father.
"I was retained within hours of the accident and began an extremely thorough investigation that has uncovered evidence that law enforcement missed," said Kevin Hayslett, one of Bollea's defense attorneys.
Doug Matthews, a spokesman for Clearwater, said investigators could not be reached late Friday to comment.
Private investigators for the Hogan family first visited Jeff's Jeep Yard roughly 10 days after the wreck, owner Jeff Garland said. They spent two hours reviewing the footage, then came back two days later to ask for a copy so they wouldn't have to waste anyone's time again, Garland said.
Garland, who was on vacation at the time, said his employees thought they were giving the surveillance video to a law enforcement agency at the time. Authorities did not ask for a copy until four weeks ago, or roughly a month after Bollea's private investigators received a copy.
The investigator who did ask for the copy was from the state attorney's office, not the Clearwater Police Department, Garland said.
A copy would not have existed at all had Garland's staff not made a backup copy when Hogan's defense team asked for its copy, Garland said. Like most surveillance tapes, old footage is replaced by new footage.
The videotape shows the Supra and a Dodge Viper driven by a friend of Bollea's at the intersection of Missouri Avenue and Court Street, roughly two-tenths of a mile east of where the Supra wrecked, leaving passenger Graziano, according to court documents, with "minimal brain wave activity."
In the 10-page affidavit made public Wednesday after Bollea was arrested on a charge of reckless driving with serious bodily injury, one witness, Denise Cirella, said she saw the two getting ready to engage in a race. She says she saw the Dodge Viper speeding off ahead of the Supra, but the videotape shows the Supra entering the intersection first.
"The tape shows inconsistencies between sworn witness statements contained in the arrest affidavit," Hayslett said. "Unfortunately, witness testimony is the least reliable." Hayslett said his investigators have uncovered other video evidence besides Jeff's Jeep Yard's, but he declined to discuss it further.
Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson
@tampatrib.com.
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