“The seatbelt’s coming out of the driver’s side,” the judge noted. “Now you’re lying to me, right?”
“No, I’m not, sir.”
At this point, the exasperated judge demanded that Carroll “let me see the driver.”
But she did not show him a driver. Instead, she said, “Hang on one second.”
“Now!” thundered the judge.
“I have to ask their permission,” she said.
But she did not ask anyone’s permission. Instead, the car came to a halt at what appeared to be a gas station. Carroll grabbed the phone, opened the car door, and stepped out… of what appeared to be the driver’s side of a vehicle.
The judge, boiling over at this point, was ready to call the hearing.
“You think I’m that stupid?” he said. “I’m going to go ahead and enter a default judgment… You lied to me.”
He directed a court official to make a note that Carroll had been driving while telling the court that she was not driving. She would have to pay the full amount of the claim in the case, plus some court costs.
“Have a great day,” the judge said, ending the hearing. “Thank you.”
“A viral spectacle”
FOX 2 News out of Detroit was able to get in touch with Carroll, who in a statement copped to what she had denied to the judge: Yes, she had been driving.
She took responsibility for “my mistake,” saying that “I panicked in the moment and made the wrong call instead of pulling over or asking to reschedule. For that, I am truly sorry.”
But Carroll was unhappy that her “brief moment of poor judgment” had turned into a “viral spectacle that is affecting my reputation, my family, and my ability to move forward with my life.”
