After a woman fell off a motorcycle and died on Interstate 95, the man who owned the bike says she contributed to her own death by riding with a driver who’d been drinking and who she’d known for only a few hours, a court filing says.
Multiple cars ran over Jennifer Amy St. Clair, 33, of Fort Lauderdale, as she lay in the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 in Pompano Beach at about 2 a.m. on Dec. 7.
“She could have decided to not get on the bike,” lawyer Michael Gelety said Friday. He represents John Lewis of Wilton Manors, who owned the 2001 Harley-Davidson Road King that St. Clair was on before she died.
“Mr. Lewis wasn’t there and didn’t force her to go on the motorcycle,” Gelety said. “It seems pretty clear that at some point, she had every opportunity as a grown-up person to say, ‘I’m not gonna go.’”
Gelety said his client’s defense “sounds harsh and cold to the survivors of the girl who was killed. But what part of that was not true? I would not get on a motorcycle on I-95 in a million years. Especially in the middle of the night.”
St. Clair went on a first date with Miles McChesney, of Schenectady, N.Y., a man she met on the dating app Tinder. They joined two other motorcycle-riding couples for a trip from Fort Lauderdale to downtown Delray Beach, where they visited three bars, according to a civil lawsuit filed in December by St. Clair’s parents, Robert Burns and Becky St. Clair.
The parents’ lawsuit accused both McChesney, as the driver of the Harley, and Lewis, as the owner of the motorcycle, of negligence.
It also said the night Jennifer St. Clair died, McChesney drank alcohol, became impaired and that his careless operation of the Harley caused St. Clair to fall off of it. It accused McChesney of not helping the injured St. Clair and of leaving the scene.
In Lewis’ answer to the lawsuit filed in Broward County court last month, he denied any negligence or liability and said he was not in lawful possession of the motorcycle at the time of the fatal crash.
Lewis blames McChesney’s actions that night for St. Clair’s death, but also said she “voluntarily exposed herself to the danger.”
St. Clair knew McChesney was under the influence of alcohol and was impaired while driving at a high rate of speed on the highway, Lewis’ court filing said. St. Clair also didn’t wear a helmet, the filing said.
“Sadly, she didn’t take a taxi,” Gelety said. “And that decision should not be visited on my client.”
The Florida Highway Patrol’s investigation is still open and will eventually be presented to the Broward state attorney’s office for review, Lt. Alvaro A. Feola said Friday.
Troopers have not arrested McChesney, nor charged him with any offense.
His lawyer, Russell Cormican, said Friday, “I have not seen any evidence that suggests my client engaged in any criminal act with regard to Ms. St. Clair’s unfortunate passing. I have not seen any evidence that he was impaired, or that the motorcycle was taken without permission.
“It appears that the FHP investigator shares my opinion, as no charges have been filed against my client,” Cormican said. “We maintain our position that this was a tragic event, but it was not due to any wrongful act by Mr. McChesney.”
Todd Falzone, the attorney representing St. Clair’s parents, said Lewis’ court filing is “an interesting argument to make when all of the people that were involved that could answer these questions have refused to speak, McChesney and his friends that were there that night.”
Falzone said of Lewis’ argument that St. Clair failed to take care for her own safety, “It is not unusual in these cases for the responsible people to blame the victim, and in this case that’s Jennifer, rather than take responsibility themselves. Under the law in the state of Florida, if you give someone your car, or a motorcycle in this case, and allow them to drive it and they do something wrong or injure somebody, you’re responsible.”
Falzone said his firm, Kelley Uustal, has leads “that we believe will lead to the truth and will establish that my client is not the cause of this tragedy.”
The case has not yet been scheduled for trial and has few filings so far. Meanwhile, St. Clair’s relatives continue to mourn.
“None of the people that were there will give this family any information and allow them to get to the healing phase in the grieving process,” Falzone said.
The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office found St. Clair died from blunt force injuries during a traffic accident.
There was evidence St. Clair had consumed alcohol before she died. But due to the limitations of the investigation, the extent that she had been drinking could not be determined, the office said.
ljtrischitta@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4233 or Twitter @LindaTrischitta
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