"Here's the AP release of the incident

CNN Anchor Fined for Leaving Accident


NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN anchor Jack Cafferty will pay a $250 fine and perform 70 hours of community service after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Cafferty had been charged with the traffic infraction, along with misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, assault and harassment, after police said he knocked a man off a bike with his Cadillac on May 14.

""This was never anything more than a traffic incident. It was resolved as a traffic infraction. Jack acted responsibly in this, as he always has,"" said Cafferty's lawyer, Seth Rosenberg.

Cafferty is an anchor on ""American Morning.""

A traffic officer and about five pedestrians ran after Cafferty's car to stop him after the accident, but Cafferty drove through at least two red lights and around other vehicles without stopping, according to a police complaint.

Cafferty was dragging the man's bike underneath his car, police said.

Cafferty later told police that he had seen a man on a bike who may have been a messenger weaving in and out of traffic as Cafferty drove south along Ninth Avenue around 10:25 a.m. When Cafferty looked in his mirror, he saw the man getting up off the ground but was unaware he had hit the bicyclist, the anchor told police.

The bicyclist, Billy Maldonado, told police he was slightly injured.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.


The unanswered question cyclists want to know is what kind of bike was destroyed."

In my legal experience, most drivers flee the scene because they are drunk/high and want to detox for a day before they are caught or turn themselves in.

Nice person Jack. Outstanding !!

In my legal experience, most drivers flee the scene because they are drunk/high and want to detox for a day before they are caught or turn themselves in.

Nice person Jack. Outstanding !!

Obviously Cafferty's actions were deplorable, and I'd like to see him in court, but was the cyclist riding the wrong way down 9th ave? I recently moved to the city, and I can't believe the absolute ignorance (or the brazen disregard for the law) of the delivery riders, etc who ride against traffic, on the sidewalks etc.

I don't own a car, but I've nearly hit some of these morons while riding, because the last thing I expect to see is another rider coming at me on a busy one-way street. I'm just not programmed for that.

I know these guys have to make a living, and I'm not wishing injuries on them or anything, but...seriously, it's a problem, and it makes every cyclist look bad in the general public's eye.

No doubt this topic has been flogged to death here, but I just had to vent...

Couldn't agree with you more, including the fact that most motorists who kill or injure cyclists serve no jail time and often pay less in fines than cyclists riding on the sidewalk.

"Large, heavy, expensive vehicles not only provide its owner status, it protects them from their actions in several ways. You hit a Cadillac with anything other than an equal behemoth, your vehicle is wrecked -- the Cadillac drives away. In this case, the Cadillac, through its quite ride and soft suspension, lends the reckless driver an excuse: ""I did not know I hit the bicyclist."" Apparently, the Cadillac interior is so well insulated you can't even hear the sound of a bicycling suck under its chassis being dragged around. Had Cafferty been driving a Mini Cooper, this defense would not be very credible."

"You are quite right, Stan. However, I hesitate to curse his Cadillac, since that might lead to more traffic injuries and perhaps even to fatalities.

However, I do curse Cafferty's tongue. May it fail him, in increasingly more obvious and embarassing ways, on camera.

I curse his hair, what's left it. May people start writing to him suggesting that he wear a toupe. And when he gets a toupe, may it look like a toupe.

Of course, my Great Uncle Ishtvan, in his day a pretty good racing cyclist and a superb hill climber (essential in a country such as Montenegro) used to say, ""Never criticize another man until you have pedaled 100 kilometers in his bicycle shorts.""

I doubt that Cafferty owns a pair of bicycle shorts. So my final curse is that he awake from a deep sleep to discover he is in Anthony Poole's shorts."