Prosecutors Drop Charges in Prominent Biglaw Partner’s Texas Boat Wreck
Texas prosecutors have dropped the lone felony charge against a Houston attorney from a prominent law firm who had been accused of abandoning injured colleagues after he crashed his boat into land on an Austin-area lake last year, reports the Austin American-Statesman.
The Statesman‘s Ryan Autullo gives the backstory:
Douglas E. McWilliams, a partner in the Vinson & Elkins’ mergers and acquisitions division, has said he told passengers he was leaving to get help for two women who had suffered serious injuries. But when McWilliams didn’t return and disappeared for almost five hours, authorities feared he might have been in the water and began a search that included 16 law enforcement officers and the use of an Austin police helicopter.
An investigator alleged that McWilliams, 49, had been seen drinking at a dinner party before the wreck and charged him with leaving the scene, but prosecutors never presented the case to a grand jury for a possible indictment and on Tuesday formally dismissed the charge.
Read the American-Statesman article.
