Crime & Safety

Rosemount Man Previously Convicted of Vehicular Homicide Arrested Again for DUI

Police arrested James Geraghty Bouchard on felony DUI charges. Bouchard was convicted in 2006 of causing a crash that killed an Apple Valley man.

A Rosemount man who was convicted in 2006 of causing a car crash that killed an Apple Valley man was arrested over the weekend on felony drunken-driving charges.

James Geraghty Bouchard, 28, is being held in the Dakota County Jail on a $75,000 bond after he was arrested just after 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 2.

Bouchard is being held pending charges of first-degree driving under the influence, obstructing the legal process, fleeing a peace officer by a means other than a motor vehicle and disorderly conduct. He is scheduled to make a first appearance on those charges Dec. 4 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

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Bouchard was convicted in 2006 of criminal vehicular homicide in the death of a passenger in his car, Joshua Paul Ruggles, 25, of Apple Valley.

Authorities said Bouchard was drunk, with a blood-alcohol content of .19 percent – more than twice the legal limit of .08 percent – when he crashed his car into a tree in an Apple Valley front yard early on the morning of Jan. 28, 2006.

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When police arrived, they found a tree lying across the front of Bouchard’s car, pinning both him and Ruggles inside. Ruggles was declared dead at the scene.

A subsequent accident reconstruction determined that Bouchard was driving at a minimum speed of 73 mph in an oncoming lane of traffic before he lost control of the car, went airborne and sheared off a tree in a front yard.

Bouchard’s car traveled another 62 feet before it came to rest in the yard, according to authorities. Because of the limitations of physical evidence and the impact of the tree, 73 mph was a “very conservative estimate” of the car’s speed.

Bouchard was sentenced to seven years of supervised probation after that conviction. He has since been accused of violating terms of his probation several times and remains under court supervision.


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