More than 3 years after crash left salesman paralyzed, driver who had seizure not cited, charged — and still licensed
Marc Osgood had a seizure while driving into Santa Fe on May 11, 2005. His SUV ran off Cerrillos Road, plunged down an embankment and slammed into the lobby of the Capitol Ford Quik Lane service department in the Santa Fe Auto Park.

A salesman there, Danny Martinez, was checking records at a counter when the Toyota 4Runner crashed through a wall and hurled him into a bathroom, breaking his neck in nine places and paralyzing him from the mid-chest down.

After the accident, according to a police report, officers found inside Osgood's SUV "numerous marijuana buds," fertilizer and books on how to grow pot, and $24,100 in cash — mostly $100 bills.

"What's done is done — I can't do anything about it," Martinez, 58, said recently, motioning with his impaired arms from an electric wheelchair. "But if (Osgood) is out there, living the same life as before and partying, then they need to do something to him or about it. ...

"I just want to know he's not out there driving again and it's the same situation it was when he hit me. If it happened once or twice, it's going to happen again — he's going to have a seizure, and if he's out driving, that's just like giving the person who shot somebody before the bullets to shoot again."

Osgood, who turns 32 on Feb. 26, apparently still has a valid New Mexico driver's license, although his whereabouts are unknown. He seems to have kept the same low profile he had after arriving in New Mexico from New York in 2001. He has had addresses in Santa Fe, Taos and Madrid, but efforts to find him have been unsuccessful.

Osgood, whose injuries were minor, was not carrying automobile-liability insurance at the time, but he was not cited for this nor charged in connection with the marijuana.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration became involved in the case. Within a few months, federal agents agreed to return half of the cash to Osgood. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kotz later said he couldn't discuss the reasons behind the "compromise" with Osgood's lawyer, D. Todd Lazar of Taos. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said the split was probably because of problems proving the money came from illegal activities.

This wasn't the first time Osgood appears to have gotten a break.

On Jan. 13, 2005 — nearly four months before he crashed into Capitol Ford — he was charged in connection with 60 marijuana plants found growing hydroponically in a house in Ranchos de Taos. Twenty days after the crash, Osgood pleaded guilty to one count of marijuana possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy in the Taos case. He was sentenced to a conditional discharge — meaning the case would be dismissed with no conviction on Osgood's record if he successfully completed a year of probation.

The prosecutor in that case said the relatively easy plea bargain was because the case was weak and that an able defense attorney probably could have had the case thrown out before trial. Although Osgood and another man signed the lease on the Ranchos de Taos house, numerous other people reportedly had been living there.

Although Osgood was not charged with driving without insurance after he crashed into Capitol Ford on May 11, 2005, he twice was charged with driving without proof of insurance on other occasions — on Feb. 14, 2003, and again last May 29. Both times, the charge was dismissed after Osgood showed magistrates proof of insurance.

Osgood's repeated encounters with the law has led Danny Martinez and his wife, Elizabeth, to become skeptical and bewildered by Osgood's treatment.

"They never gave him a ticket for not having insurance," she said of the Capitol Ford incident. "When my husband was in the hospital, ... (police and nurses) were warning us not to get near Marc Osgood. My family was treated like criminals. We were so worried about my husband — my husband was dying — and they were saying we were trying to go to Marc Osgood's room. ...

"What reason do they have to give that money back to him? That money should have gone to my husband for doctor bills or whatever he needed it for — not back to Mark Osgood. ... Why aren't they doing anything to this guy? If he's having seizures, he should be off the street, without a driver's license, not driving around free."

Elizabeth Martinez said Henry Valdez, who was district attorney at the time, betrayed her and her husband by refusing to prosecute Osgood.

Valdez said he met with the Martinezes and they did not object to his observation that there was not enough evidence for a successful prosecution of Osgood. He said his investigator was unable to find any proof that Osgood had a previous record of seizures.

Valdez said the Osgood case differed from a much-publicized case that occurred on March 17, 2006, when a pickup crashed into the Concentra Medical Center, killing three people and injuring others. That driver, who had a seizure, later was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of vehicular homicide and six counts of great bodily harm for not taking her anti-seizure medication.

A former housemate of Osgood before the accident recalled in a recent phone interview that Osgood had told him that he had suffered a seizure that caused a traffic accident "on his way back from Taos" in the summer of 2004. The man, who was attending the College of Santa Fe at the time and now lives in Chicago, asked not to be identified.

"He was the sort of bad roommate that everybody has in college," the man said of Osgood. "He was filthy and never really had any furniture or anything — just a futon left over from a previous tenant."

State law requires that those with a medical condition that might affect their driving inform the state Motor Vehicle Division of the condition when applying for a driver's license. That information is turned over to a board of physicians who rule on whether that person can be licensed to drive.

Alicia Ortiz, deputy director of the division, said there is no record that Osgood reported any such condition when he applied for his New Mexico license in 2001. She said Osgood has not applied to renew his eight-year driver's license, which expires March 26.

Ortiz said state law allows any member of the public to question one's ability to drive because of a possible medical condition. Based on a reporter's inquiry Tuesday, "we'll start that process this afternoon," she said. "It triggers us to write him a letter and say, 'You have a certain number of days in which to provide medical proof that you are capable of driving. Otherwise, we'll cancel or suspend your license.' So we will start that today."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.