Several times delayed already, the trial of Andrew Mintz, the now-34-year-old Palm Coast man involved in an alleged high-speed pursuit that ended in a crash in downtown Flagler Beach, within a few feet of several elected officials and their family, has been delayed to July 15.
The trial was to be scheduled for next week. Appearing this morning for docket sounding–the last step before trial–before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, the lawyer representing Mintz told the judge that Mintz was scheduled for knee surgery on May 2, the latest in a series of medical procedures since the crash. He had been severely injured in a head-on collision, and airlifted from the scene. Mintz was also in court today. His parents, who live in Georgia, posted his bail on $100,000 bond.
Assistant State Attorney Tara Libby, who is prosecuting the case, had no objections.
Mintz faces a second degree felony charge of fleeing or attempting to elude police “at high speed with wanton disregard,” and a misdemeanor count of reckless driving causing property damage. It has never been made clear why Mintz had been speeding on State Road A1A from the Hammock, where he’d been spotted driving on the wrong side of the road, to the intersection of A1A and State Road 100, where he crashed: the Flagler Beach officer who filed the charge did not interview Mintz.
Five people were in two of the other vehicles involved in the crash, several of whom were seriously injured after Mintz’s Honda struck an oncoming pick-up head-on. The state’s possible witnesses include all five people, and three Flagler Beach police officers.
While the Florida Highway Patrol filed a reckless driving citation, it was dropped, but only because the prosecution initiated its own reckless driving charge.
