Oldham County Magistrate dismisses allegations he broke law and left scene of accident | News from WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WDRB) — Oldham County Judge and Clerk David Voegele denies allegations that he violated the law and left the scene of an accident.

Voegele told WDRB News that he now has to pay out of his own pocket, about $850, for the damage to the county SUV he was driving.

WDRB investigators filed an open records request for a police report and photographs of the accident after hearing concerns that the situation was being covered up.

Voegele said he was delivering something for the county in a parking lot in Buckner on June 18 when he tried to go around a FedEx truck that was parked there for a delivery. In doing so, he said, he tried to squeeze between the truck and another car in a parking lot and misjudged the parked FedEx truck by a quarter of an inch.

He said he drove into the back of the truck and struck the county’s SUV. Voegele said only the SUV was damaged, not the truck. He said when the FedEx driver got to the truck, he told him that he thought the driver had not parked properly. He said there was a verbal altercation between him and the driver, but there was no yelling.

Voegele said it was an “accident, clearly my fault. He denied that he had parked illegally.”

He said the driver called police and drove away before police arrived because the FedEx truck had no damage and because it was the driver’s policy to call police for any incident involving one of his trucks.

“I went back to the office and immediately went to the police station and filed a report,” said Voegele.

The judge referred to KRS 189.580, a law governing behavior in traffic accidents, and said that this showed that he had done nothing wrong by leaving.

“There’s no law that says I have to stay there,” he said. “People assume you left the scene of the accident and I didn’t do anything wrong. I just decided to walk away because the other vehicle wasn’t damaged.”

He said he initially thought it was an insurance claim, but the small amount of damage “wouldn’t even cover our deductible.”

Voegele said he covered the cost of repairing the SUV, even though county employees were not required to do so.

FedEx did not respond to a request for comment.

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