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Man Heading Back To Prison After Another DUI Arrest

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 24, 2009

William Edward Ham

TAMPA - A man on probation for DUI-manslaughter is going back to prison after being found drunk behind the wheel of an idling car.

Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Daniel Perry said today he had no choice but to revoke the probation of William Edward Ham and order him to serve the remaining three years and seven months of his sentence.

"I can't sit here and say he is not going to get drunk again," Perry said. "He not only was drinking, he was wasted."

In 1999, Ham was sentenced to 10 years in prison and almost four years of probation in the 1998 wreck that killed Sandra L. Allen, 36, of Riverview.

He was released from prison in January 2008.

Ham was arrested again March 4 when Tampa police officers said they found him passed out or asleep behind the wheel of an idling car. His blood-alcohol level was .180 and .179, prosecutors said. State law presumes a person intoxicated at .08.

Sandra Allen, the victim's mother, spoke for putting Ham back in prison.

"I hope you rot in jail," she said. "This man does not deserve a second chance. My daughter only got one chance."

Louise Armstrong, the victim's grandmother, took a more lenient tenor.

"I forgave you once," she said. "Do you know many people you've hurt?"

Ham's father asked that his son be spared additional prison time.

"I realize he's made a mistake," William G. Ham said. "It has been on his mind ever since. He is not a bad person."

Timothy Taylor, Ham's attorney, asked that his client be placed in an in-patient, alcohol treatment program.

"Obviously, he has an alcohol problem," he said.

But prosecutor Barbara Coleman questioned Ham's desire to change.

"If Mr. Ham was serious about getting help, help is not being passed out at the wheel," she said.

Perry said such treatment facilities don't lock their patients in and public safety demands that Ham be kept from behind the wheel.

Perry also ordered Ham's driver's license be permanently revoked. The judge who sentenced Ham in 1999 did the same, but a paperwork error allowed Ham to get another license when he got out of prison.

"Let's try this again," Perry said.

Ham was drunk and speeding on Oct. 21, 1998, when he rear-ended Allen's car on Bloomingdale Avenue, spinning it into a metal railing and then a utility pole.

"This brings back all the pain," Sandra Allen said after today's hearing. "He just sat over there with a smirk on his face. He's going to do it again."

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 259-7698.

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