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Former Storm player back in court over traffic fatality

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 8, 2009

Updated: 04/08/2009 03:58 pm

TAMPA - The last time Tania Shake saw Jonathan Conklin he was pedaling west in the bicycle lane on Linebaugh Avenue entering the intersection with Mullis City Way.

Shake saw an SUV ahead drift into the lane ahead and then violently swerve into the bike lane.
"I was thinking "Oh, my god. Oh, my god,'" she said. "Then I saw a man laying there and the bike on the ground."

Shake was the first witness today in the DUI manslaughter/vehicular homicide trial of Darion Conner, a former Tampa Bay Storm arena football player accused of striking and killing Conklin, 32, with his Toyota Land Cruiser at about 2 a.m. Sept. 4, 2004.

Conner, 41, was sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence in 2005. A state appeals court overturned the conviction in 2008, saying prosecutors showed jurors an irrelevant and prejudicial photograph of the victim.

Brooke Elvington, Conner's attorney, told jurors in her opening statement that the state's case shouldn't lead them to convict.

"There are too many unanswered questions and two many missing pieces," she said.
Testimony in the trial is expected to conclude Thursday.

Assistant State Attorney Matthew Smith told jurors Shake was one of three witnesses who would testify Conner was driving erratically.

Shake said the car she was riding in was next to Conner's when both were stopped at the traffic light at Gunn Highway.

"He was hanging out the window, rocking back and forth and swaying in his chair," she testified. "It looked like he was holding himself up."

Shake said Conner repeatedly swerved into the left lane in which were traveling and then would overcorrect by jerking his car to the right.

She said she didn't see the crash. But there was sufficient light to seek Conklin's bicycle and its reflectors.

Blood tests put Conner's blood alcohol level at .273. State law presumes a person intoxicated at 0.08.
At his first trial, Conner's attorney argued Conklin was also drunk and it was Conklin who served in front of Conner.

Conner has three previous DUI convictions.

After hitting the bicyclist, Shake said Conner's SUV veered back to the left, jumping the median, mowing down a small tree and driving in the opposite lane into oncoming traffic.

Smith said Conner eventually got his car pointed in the right direction but that deputies found him asleep or passed out at the wheel.

Conner played for the Storm from 1999 to 2005. He was a second-round draft choice of the Atlanta Falcons in 1990 and played for several National Football League teams until 1997.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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