Criminal charges filed Tuesday allege a man was extremely drunk when he plowed his SUV into a crowded bar patio in St. Louis Park over the Labor Day weekend, killing two people and injuring at least nine others.
Steven Frane Bailey, 56, of St. Louis Park was charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and nine counts of criminal vehicular operation in connection with the wreck at Park Tavern about 8 p.m. Sunday.
The crash killed 30-year-old employee Kristina Marie Folkerts of St. Louis Park, and customer Gabriel Quinn Harvey of Rosemount, a 30-year-old health unit coordinator at nearby Methodist Hospital and nursing school student, who was there with others celebrating a colleague’s departure.
Bailey remains jailed on $1 million bail. He is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday. Court records did not list an attorney for him.
The charges say that law enforcement administered a preliminary breath test at HCMC, and it measured his blood alcohol content at 0.325%, more than four times the legal limit for driving in Minnesota. Court documents show Bailey has five drunken-driving convictions on his record dating back to when he was a teenager.
“What was supposed to be the end of a wonderful holiday weekend turned into a horrific tragedy that is made even worse by the fact that this was totally preventable,” County Attorney Mary Moriarty said at a news conference after the charges were filed. “In a time where we have more options than ever to ensure a safe ride home, Mr. Bailey made the choice to get behind the wheel while highly intoxicated and dramatically altered the lives of so many people.”
Moriarty did not know how fast the car was going in the lot and did not know how many people were on the patio at the time of the crash. But she said children were present, and a number of them left the patio shortly before the crash. Although none were injured, the presence of children is an aggravating factor the prosecution will cite to push for a longer sentence for Bailey if he is convicted.
According to the criminal complaint: