Homicide Charges Dropped In Wis. Drunk Driving Case

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Wisconsin family watched on Monday afternoon as the driver who killed their loved one went home without being punished for his death.

A St. Croix County court dropped homicide charges against 23-year-old Alyssa Kochsiek. She hit and killed 28-year-old Jeffrey Boardman last April.

Boardman and a friend were walking home from a bar on a dark county highway in Star Prairie.

Outside of the courtroom, Boardman's family members told WCCO they are heartbroken over this outcome.

Boardman's older sisters, Rebecca Lutz and Elizabeth Benyo, wore shirts to commemorate their brother.

"Our brother's life was a $1,000 fine," Benyo said.

Boardman made a fateful decision last April when he and a friend decided to walk, not drive, home from a neighborhood bar because they had been drinking.

St. Croix County investigators report the men were wearing dark clothing and walking along rural, two-lane County Highway C when 22-year-old driver Kochsiek hit Boardman.

Boardman died at the scene. No one else, including two passengers in the car, was hurt.

"I'm very disappointed," Benyo said. "There is no justice."

Kochsiek pleaded no contest to a drunk driving charge. In Wisconsin, this type of first offense is considered a civil traffic offense, not a criminal offense.

"This is the worst thing ever," Lutz said of the outcome.

The court dismissed homicide charges against the defendant at the suggestion of the District Attorney's office after the prosecutor explained reconstruction and investigation of the crash could not prove the accident would not still have happened if Kochsiek had been sober.

The prosecutor, Eric Johnson, explained a completely sober passenger in the car did not see Boardman in the roadway prior to the impact.

Both sides agreed there was no evidence the driver was speeding.

He also explained evidence suggested Boardman was walking on the wrong side of the road in the lane of traffic.

Kochsiek's defense attorney, Aaron Nelson, wrote in an email to WCCO, "It was a tragic traffic accident that was resolved fairly based on the evidence."

Kochsiek will have her license taken away for nine months and will have to have a breathalyzer test in order to start her car for a year.

Despite the legal outcome, Boardman's family wants to focus on remembering Jeffrey.

"She got to take our little brother's life and we will never get him back," Lutz said. "She gets to walk out this door free and clear with not one day of jail time whatsoever."

The St. Croix County district attorney reports Wisconsin is one of the only, if not the only, state where a first drunk driving offense is not treated as a crime.

A second offense could carry jail time.

In Minnesota, a first offense does carry possible jail time.