King County Council's Hague facing charge of drunken driving

Metropolitan King County Councilmember Jane Hague will appear in a Redmond courtroom next week on a charge of driving under the influence.

She was arrested by a King County sheriff's deputy near Bellevue on June 2, but the case has not received any publicity until now.

The deputy said in court documents that he had watched Hague drive erratically on Highway 520. He described her as "sarcastic and condescending" during the arrest.

Hague, R-Bellevue, pleaded not guilty to the charge July 30.

Her attorney, Doug Cowan, said his client intends to "vigorously defend the case." Hague could not be reached for comment.

Hague recorded blood-alcohol readings of 0.135 percent and 0.141 percent, according to court records. A level of 0.08 is considered the level of intoxication under state law.

Cowan said he couldn't explain why the DUI citation was not made public earlier.

"It's not our responsibility," he said. "I haven't the foggiest notion."

The Times received a tip about the incident Tuesday.

A council member since 1994, Hague was unopposed for renomination in Tuesday's Republican primary.

According to court filings, Hague was traveling eastbound at 11:03 p.m. June 2 on Highway 520 in her 1999 Mercedes SL 500 convertible when King County Sheriff's Deputy Peter Cougan began following the car. Cougan said in an affidavit that he watched the car nearly hit the median twice and each time jerk back into its lane,

In the affidavit, Cougan also said he gave Hague drunken-driving tests and noticed that she had to grab onto her car to keep from falling and was unable to stand on one leg.

Hague, 61, told him she had had one glass of wine but in further questioning said she had consumed two glasses of wine between 7:30 p.m. and the time of the stop, Cougan reported.

Once in the patrol car, Hague called the arrest "ridiculous" and used foul language, Cougan said in court papers. He also reported that she asked, "Don't you have rapists to take off the street?"

Hague's husband, Charles Edward Springman, was a passenger in the car.

The Washington State Patrol was summoned for assistance, and the case was transferred to the Patrol for processing.

Cowan said he intends to contest the accuracy of the blood-alcohol readings.

"Jane was returning with her husband from a children's charity event," he said Tuesday.

The DUI charge was filed against Hague under the name of Jane Hague Springman on July 16. It's not unusual for days or weeks to pass between the date of a traffic stop and the filing of charges.

Her next court appearance is a pretrial hearing next Wednesday. No trial date has been set.

While most matters in the case were available to the public, two records were stamped "Security," indicating they could not be viewed by the public. Because of the notation, a court clerk would not make the documents available for viewing Wednesday.

Later in the day, Judge Peter Nault, who presided at the July 30 arraignment where Hague entered her plea, reviewed the security seal and agreed to make one of the documents available.

The unsealed document was Cougan's affidavit laying out the circumstances of the arrest. Nault declined to unseal a witness list because it contained the home addresses of witnesses.

The record of the arrest was never sealed.

No one involved in the matter could explain why the other records were sealed. Such documents, generally designated as statements of probable cause, are routinely filed as part of charges in King County district and superior courts, and reporters commonly use them as source materials in describing criminal events.

The prosecutor's office said it didn't request the sealing, and Cowan said his law firm did not request it, either.

Nault said he didn't recall the case among the hundreds of DUI cases he handled in the past two months. He said it's possible Cougan's affidavit was sealed because it bore a heading as a sheriff's incident report, while probable-cause affidavits usually are prepared by the King County Prosecutor's Office. Police reports, or statements by officers about what was involved in making an arrest, usually are incorporated in prosecutors' filings.

The county prosecutor's office has withdrawn from further involvement in the case, citing possible conflicts of interest, since the civil division of the office handles matters relating to the County Council. The case instead will be prosecuted by the city of Redmond prosecutor.

Richard Pope, who led write-in candidate Brad Larssen for the Democratic nomination for Hague's council seat in early absentee votes Tuesday night, said he expects voters to be concerned both about Hague's arrest and her failure to publicly acknowledge it before it was reported in the newspapers.

"It sounds like she knew she had something to hide that was embarrassing," Pope said. "I think that's probably at least as alarming as the original charge."

Brett Bader, Hague's longtime campaign spokesman, said he could say little, on the advice of her lawyer. "Obviously Jane is very upset over the situation and wants to deal with this in an appropriate and responsible manner," he said in a statement. "We do have concerns with some of the events as reported that evening."

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times reporter Keith Ervin contributed to this report.