December 1 -- The Florida Highway Patrol will cite Tiger Woods for careless driving but will not press criminal charges for his car crash outside his Florida home last Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The citation, which will include a $164 fine and four points against his driver’s license, will close the police investigation, the AP says.
"Despite the celebrity status of Mr. Woods, the Florida Highway Patrol has completed its investigation in the same professional manner it strives to complete each traffic investigation," Sgt. Kim Montes told the AP.
The police report includes the following details:
- Woods crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree at 2: 25 on the morning of Friday, Nov. 27, 2009.
- The airbags did not deploy.
- Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, told police she used a golf club to smash the back windows of the Cadillac Escalade in an effort to rescue her husband.
In other news. Nope, just kidding. It’s still All-Tiger-Woods, All-the-Time.
An attorney for Woods’ neighbors who made the now-famous 911 call after the crash refuted multiple rumors that Nordegren had actually clubbed Woods’ car in anger after a domestic altercation. Woods’ injuries were “consistent with a car wreck and inconsistent with him being beat up,” Bill Sharpe, the neighbors’ lawyer, told the AP.
"The scratches on his face were consistent with someone who maybe was in a minor car accident and hit his head on the windshield,” the AP quoted Sharpe. “None of his injuries looked like he was beat up by his wife."
Whew! Glad that’s cleared up. If the neighbors -- who are not reported to have any medical expertise -- say so, then it must be true! Case closed.
Well, it is as far as the police are concerned. It’s far from that in the court of public opinion, but if there’s no crime involved, what the hell business is it of anyone’s but Woods' and his family?
Everyone's, apparently, if you believe new reports surfacing almost by the nanosecond that Woods has had more than one extra-marital affair.
As if you didn’t know. To bring you up to date, Woods crashed his SUV outside his Windermere, FL, home early Friday morning. Emergency workers took him to the hospital after he suffered facial lacerations, blacked out for six minutes, and was woozy and incoherent following the accident. Nordegren supposedly teed off with a golf club on the windows of his Cadillac Escalade in an effort to rescue her husband from the wreck.
Woods, who reportedly turned police away from his home three times over the weekend, broke his silence when he posted a mea culpa of sorts on his Web site Sunday.
Despite blaming himself for the incident and defending his wife for “acting courageously,” speculation continues to swirl about a possible Woods’ affair, a domestic argument sparking the crash, and what Nordegren was really doing with that golf club.
Lawyered up. Woods’ statement blasted “unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me.” The rumors Woods cited likely involve a National Enquirer story linking the world’s top golfer with a New York nightclub hostess, Rachel Uchitel.
Uchitel has repeatedly denied an affair with Woods, although she conceded she stayed at the same Melbourne hotel at the same time as Woods, who was playing in the Australian Masters. Uchitel has since hired well-known attorney Gloria Allred to represent her.
Woods, in the meantime, will apparently do his talking through his Web site and his own lawyer, Mark NeJame, who told ABC News on November 29 that Woods would remain mum. "We stand by his [Woods'] previously released statement, regarding his privacy," ABC News quoted NeJame, who noted that neither he nor Woods would speak with anybody, including the police, about Friday's accident.
911 call. Neighbor Linda Adams and her two grown sons heard the crash and went outside, where Nordegren asked them to call 911, according to Sharpe. The neighbors said Woods had scratches on his face, seemed woozy, and that Nordegren was “trying to console him,” according to the AP.
"One thing we want to make clear is that Mrs. Woods' attitude was consistent with her being concerned about her injured husband," Sharpe said to the AP. "Mrs. Woods was trying to help him. Mrs. Woods was worried about her husband. She was concerned."
The Adams family hired Sharpe to let the world know they have cooperated fully with investigators and are hiding nothing, said the AP report.
Woods cited injuries from the crash when he bowed out of his golf tourney this week. Read about it at Tiger Woods withdraws from Chevron World Golf Challenge.
Even Tiger Woods might laugh at Wanda Sykes' version of what really went down last Friday outside the Woods' mansion. Check it out in this video (viewer discretion advised: strong, possibly offensive language):
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