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Racing Evidence Mounts In Crash

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

CLEARWATER - Danny Jacobs told police he wasn't racing, but later he was overheard confiding to a pastor that he was driving 113 mph or 130 mph before the car he was competing against crashed.

The passenger in the other car - Iraq war veteran John Graziano, 22 - was left with severe brain damage. The driver of the other car, Nick Bollea, the 17-year-old son of wrestler Hulk Hogan, was charged with reckless driving with serious bodily injury.

On Tuesday, a fuller picture of the wreck, as well as the events leading up to it, began to appear as the Clearwater Police Department released 225 pages of documents. An 11-minute tape of the 911 calls made by witnesses was also released by the county dispatch system.

Aside from Jacob's remarks, which were overheard by the mother of Graziano's girlfriend, other revelations contained in the documents are:

•Less than six hours before the Aug. 26 wreck, Hogan was seen at an Albertsons liquor store with his son and his son's friends. Receipts show that Hogan purchased two cases of Miller Lite beer, two cases of Corona beer, one case of Miller Chill beer and five bags of ice.

•Later, after Hogan docked his boat at Shephard's Tiki Bar on Clearwater Beach, Bollea and his friends, including Jacobs, hopped out and waded ashore. The head of security, who knew Bollea was under age, asked for identification. The group said they didn't have any and returned to the vessel.

All of them, except Bollea, were holding a beer, and Bollea was holding a plastic cup containing an undetermined beverage.

•One Clearwater police officer allowed a distraught Hogan to be escorted close to the wreck while his son was extricated. The officer was concerned there might be a problem if he physically tried to stop Hogan from approaching the scene.

A sergeant was ordered to drive Hogan to St. Petersburg's Bayfront Medical Center, where his son and Graziano were taken, because there was some concern Hogan would speed to get there.

•By the time an officer arrived at Bollea's hospital room, his attorney Kevin Hayslett was already there. When asked who the wrecked Toyota Supra belonged to, Bollea pointed to his father who was also in the room. Bollea couldn't remember what street he had been driving on, what direction he had been driving in, or whether it had been raining. He said he was driving 30 mph to 40 mph. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was mumbling.

Once it was clear he was suspected of committing a crime, he stopped talking to police.

The 11-minute 911 tape contains two witnesses who say Bollea and Jacobs, who was driving a Dodge Viper owned by Hogan, had been racing. "There was two cars drag racing and one just wiped out," one witness said.

The Clearwater police report contains more witnesses testifying to that effect. One was a motorcyclist who motioned the Viper into position at the intersection of Court Street and Missouri Avenue, because, the motorcyclist said, he didn't want to get involved in what was obviously a race.Various witnesses say the Supra fishtailed out of the intersection before the car jumped the median farther down Court Street and hit a palm tree. By then, the Viper that Jacobs was driving had passed the Supra.

Jacobs caught the horrific aftermath in his rearview mirror. "Oh, my God," he was quoted as saying.

He then drove to get Hogan after being unable to reach him by phone, documents say.

Jacobs told police he and Bollea did not bolt from the intersection. Later, however, he told Linda Berry, the mother of John Graziano's girlfriend, that they had been racing.

It was Berry who overheard Jacobs' remarks to a pastor while they were at Bayfront, outside Graziano's room in the intensive care unit. She said she heard Jacobs say he was going 113 mph or 130 mph - she wasn't sure which. The speed limit was 40 mph.

An accident reconstruction by investigators determined the Supra was going 61 mph to 66 mph - a range that doesn't take into account the loss of vehicle energy when the car jumped the median curb and struck the palm tree, one document released Tuesday says.

At least one paramedic did not think Graziano, who had a finger-size hole in his forehead, was alive. Some witnesses thought the same. "There's no way this guy's alive after that," one 911 caller told a dispatcher. Graziano is in James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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