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WEST JORDAN — A former Davis County school bus driver pleaded guilty Wednesday to driving under the influence as she transported 75 students and teachers to a student council conference last year.
Lycia Kay Martinez, 40, quietly answered "guilty" to a charge of DUI, a class A misdemeanor, in a West Jordan courtroom Wednesday. Martinez was arrested in October after her erratic driving on I-15 prompted other drivers and adults on the bus to make frightened 911 calls.
Martinez, of Clinton, admitted to driving after taking prescription medications that day. She hid her face as she left the courtroom and did not speak to reporters.
She will be sentenced on Dec. 7 and faces a maximum potential of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
At the time of Martinez's arrest, investigators found pill bottles in her purse for Clonidine, Cyclobenzaprine, Xanax and Meloxicam. Toxicology tests showed "the presence of Clonidine and (Xanax) in amounts exceeding the upper range of the recommended daily dosage for those substances," according to charging documents.
Martinez was driving the group of 67 sixth-grade students and eight teachers from four elementary schools from the Layton area to the event at BYU. Adults on the bus started calling 911 near 3300 South saying the bus kept drifting into other lanes and was getting dangerously close to other vehicles.
A Utah Highway Patrol trooper spotted the bus near 11000 South and followed it to 12300 South, noting that the bus "drifted back and forth several times over the double white lines and straddled two lanes," the charges state.
The trooper reported that Martinez seemed confused and showed signs of impairment as a field sobriety test was issued.
Martinez's license was suspended in November. She called for a judicial review of the suspension a month later, claiming that reaching for the bus radio may have caused the bus to swerve and saying that she was suffering from a migraine headache at the time. A treatment for the headache that she received the next day caused her to forget much of that had happened on the bus, she claimed.
Related:
Davis County school bus driver charged with DUI
A Davis County school bus driver who was stopped and arrested in October while transporting 75 people to a school event in Provo has been charged with DUI.Martinez's petition was dismissed last month for failure to serve documents to the defendant, the Department of Public Safety Driver License Division, within 120 days of filing her complaint, according to court records.
She resigned from her job as a school bus driver in January.
New charges from an unrelated incident were filed against Martinez just last week stemming from an incident in August, according to court records.
Police say Martinez plugged a drain and left the water running in the Clinton home where she was living, sending water down into the next level. She also allegedly placed a metal container in the microwave and started it. Martinez was charged Sept. 11 in 2nd District Court with criminal mischief, a third-degree felony.
Damage to the residence, which Martinez does not own, exceeded $1,500, according to charging documents.
An initial appearance in that case is scheduled for Oct. 19.
