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Boozy barrister breaks boat, bros' bones; bolts to beat BWI

bschoolprof

By bschoolprof
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bschoolprof

bschoolprof 6252

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Posted

Now faces criminal charges.  Surly someone knows/is this guy.  His story is totally believable too - better hope he gets chainsaw on the jury.  

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On the night of May 10, a group of Houston lawyers from the prominent law firm Vinson & Elkins arrived at a colleague’s weekend home overlooking Lake Travis for a buffet dinner before a daylong retreat the next morning.

When they got ready to return to their hotel after 10 p.m., they learned their shuttle bus had broken down. Douglas E. McWilliams, a partner in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions division, offered to ferry five of them in his boat to the Lakeway Resort and Spa.

McWilliams was at the helm of the vessel when it crashed into a swath of land near Graveyard Point, seriously injuring two of his passengers.

McWilliams, who was thrown out of the boat in the crash, told his injured colleagues that he was going to get help, according to him and his attorney. But they did not hear from him for nearly five hours. That raised fears among authorities that he might be in the water and triggered a search that included the use of the Austin police helicopter. Investigators say in an affidavit the “suspect fled the location.”

Now McWilliams, 48, is facing a felony charge.

But McWilliams, who represents large firms at the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, says he left because a passenger trying to call 911 had trouble with cellphone service. McWilliams, who had left his phone at home, said he lost track of time after leaving the boat, and was stunned to hear that several hours had elapsed before he finally made contact with someone who called an ambulance.

“After finding out what time it was when EMS arrived, I believe I must have fainted or passed out for several hours from the combination of extreme pain I was under, the shock of the accident and the incredible stress I was under,” McWilliams wrote in a statement. “It’s the only explanation I can think of to account for the amount of time that passed before finally finding a place where I could call 911.

In his statement, McWilliams said, “I was not hiding from anyone as I had nothing to hide. I was not intoxicated when the wreck occurred, or for that matter, at any time during the night, and it’s ridiculous and insulting to me to suggest that I’d run and hide while my colleagues were suffering in an attempt to avoid responsibility for anything.”

In an arrest affidavit, parks and wildlife investigator Adam Alvarez said two of the five passengers were taken by helicopter to the hospital after the crash, which happened just before 11 p.m., including one who had fractured facial bones, fractured ribs and a fractured vertebra.

“Suspect’s time at the scene after the collision was so brief that the victims and witnesses involved were uncertain if they even saw the suspect after the crash,” Alvarez wrote. “These uncertain reports led emergency personnel to search the surrounding water and to check for suspect’s body.”

Nearly five hours later, at 3:54 a.m., McWilliams made contact using a call box with someone at a home on Casablanca Lane in Lakeway, said he was in an accident and needed help. Paramedics took him to a nearby hospital.

In his six-page affidavit, McWilliams said that during the evening he did not consume more than two or three drinks and did not drink anything but water after about 8:15 p.m.

At one point on the way from his home to the resort, he said he inadvertently entered a cove that he thought was the main body of the lake. He said he realized what he had done and turned around. About that time, he struck land in a shallow part of the lake.

“The accident and moments after are somewhat a blur,” he wrote. “My only impressions from it are: we were tumbling, I slammed up against something three times, and I remember being thrown from the boat.”

In the aftermath, McWilliams said he remembers one of the passengers staring at his phone and saying he was having a hard time contacting 911 and didn’t know where they were.

“I specifically recall telling him to keep trying to call 911 and that I will also go try to find some help,” he wrote. “I felt a frantic need to get help.”

He said he started running in extreme darkness and felt disoriented. He said he was struggling to run or walk.

McWilliams said he wanted to knock on a door, but his efforts were met with “a very vicious dog.” Finally, he found a house with a call box, and asked the owner to call 911.

story here

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4913

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Wonder if the boat driver (McWilliams) is going to advise those injured in the crash to sue him. It’s their right, ensuring they are compensated for their injuries occurring due to the negligence of others, protecting public safety and what not. Or maybe he’ll sue he state for putting a sand bar in front of his drunkenly navigated boat. 

 

Not it all heroes wear capes ya know 

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woohorn

woohorn 1131

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Maybe, but "Harvard Lawyers" aren't gettin' any breaks on this site.

 

Possible that his buds feigned ignorance on him not being in water so he would have had time to sober up. I'll bet they would have tore up tbe woods lookin' for him had they known he fled like a bitch. Don't think they care much for drunk boaters on Travis these days.

 

Def too bad he can't "prove" his sobriety level.

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Johnny Sack

Johnny Sack 8397

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18 hours ago, woohorn said:

The crash isn't fishy at all.

 

The after-crash story is.

 

Leaving the scene of any accident is a dick move by anyone.

This.  You can be stone cold sober and fuck up at night.  Hell, I don't like motoring down the wide open intracoastal in the dark.  To hard to differentiate between land and water.

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Planet Houston

Planet Houston 4930

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It hit the WSJ.  The boat was going over 30 mph.  I still can't believe nobody was killed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-investigators-seek-felony-fleeing-the-scene-charge-against-prominent-oil-lawyer-1530187200

Texas authorities are seeking to charge a prominent oil-patch lawyer with a felony, according to a criminal complaint that alleges he fled the scene of a boat wreck that left three of his partners hospitalized.

A judge signed a felony arrest warrant last Thursday for Douglas McWilliams, a partner at Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP, but recalled it a day later. Mr. McWilliams’s lawyer said he requested the recall to allow him to persuade prosecutors that charges aren’t justified. The Travis County District Attorney’s office said it was unable to comment on a “pending matter.”

Detectives from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, which filed the complaint and the arrest warrant, say they have been investigating the incident since May 10, when they and several other law-enforcement agencies, paramedics and firefighters were called to a late-night boat crash at Lake Travis, a man-made reservoir on the Colorado River outside Austin.

Mr. McWilliams and investigators say they agree on several facts: That he had been steering his 23-foot power boat with five of his law partners aboard when it slammed into a rocky peninsula called Graveyard Point, that he wasn’t present at the crash site when rescuers arrived, and that he turned up about five hours later, just before 4 a.m., ringing the gate buzzer at a nearby estate asking for help.

In a sworn statement that his lawyer said he has shared with prosecutors in hopes of staving off an arrest, Mr. McWilliams said he left the wreckage to find help, became disoriented, fainted from the pain of a shoulder separated when he was thrown from the boat and was menaced by “what sounded like a very vicious sounding dog” before he found the call box. He said he was unaware of how much time had passed since he had set off.

In their own sworn statements, some of his law partners present at the lake that night said they feared in the moment that he was dead.

Investigators said in their criminal complaint that they too believed the situation grave, and the helicopter summoned to fly two of the injured lawyers to an Austin hospital was diverted to first look for Mr. McWilliams. Another helicopter, equipped with a spotlight and thermal-imaging gear, joined rescue boats and 16 flashing police cars in the search, investigators said.

“It’s ridiculous and insulting to me to suggest that I’d run and hide while my colleagues were suffering in an attempt to avoid responsibility for anything,” Mr. McWilliams said.

“The facts as we understand them do not support this attempt by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to obtain an arrest warrant,” a Vinson & Elkins spokesman said. “We are fully supporting Doug and all of our attorneys involved in this unfortunate accident.”

Founded in 1917 at the dawn of the oil era in Houston, V&E has become one of the country’s largest and most profitable firms thanks to the U.S. shale boom. Mr. McWilliams, 48, is a top earner at V&E, whose senior lawyers routinely rake in multimillion-dollar paychecks, according to people familiar with the matter.

He leads a team of lawyers who advise wildcatters, rig owners and others on stock offerings and bond deals. Last year, he worked on two of the oil industry’s biggest mergers, and in 2016 his team had a hand in 10 of 13 U.S. energy IPOs. Mr. McWilliams and the firm especially dominate the field of master limited partnerships, pipeline-owning entities that avoid corporate taxes by paying out profits to shareholders. These entities have proliferated as the country’s energy supply routes have been redrawn.

State investigators estimate in their crash report that the boat was traveling between 30 and 40 miles an hour when it zipped past the wrong side of a lighted buoy and crashed. The boat, a Nautique Super Air, rolled over at least once as it skipped ashore. All but one of the lawyers were flung from it, according to the lawyers’ affidavits. One woman broke her clavicle, ribs and a tooth, according to the complaint. Another fractured facial bones, ribs and vertebrae. A male partner had a head injury.

In their sworn statements, Mr. McWilliams’s co-workers described a sedate, catered dinner earlier in the night. Attendees were partners involved in the firm’s capital-markets practice and a few support employees in town for a day of meetings at a resort on the lake. Mr. McWilliams invited everyone to dinner at the waterfront home he and his wife bought last summer. Alcohol was consumed, but modestly, they said. Several of the lawyers were anxious about getting back to their hotel rooms to work a bit before bed. When the hotel shuttle was delayed, Mr. McWilliams offered a ride in his boat. Several swore that Mr. McWilliams didn’t appear drunk.

Investigators say they never had a chance to test him for intoxication after he turned up because he was whisked away by an ambulance to a nearby medical center for treatment. Mr. McWilliams said in his own affidavit that he told the paramedics who tended him in the early morning that he had had “a couple of drinks much earlier in the evening,” but also that he takes “great offense” to investigators’ suspicions about his sobriety at the time of the crash.

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Skipper

Skipper 6133

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Posted (edited)

"Alcohol was consumed, but modestly, they said."

Yeah, that's pretty much the exact opposite of every firm meeting/retreat I've ever attended.  And there very well may have been some junior partners that took it easy because they had to go back to the hotel and work, but I'm quite certain this guy wasn't one that was planning to work on docs after the party.

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Stoogey

Stoogey 219

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On 6/26/2018 at 9:13 PM, Chet Steadman said:

This reminds me, what ever came of the self-proclaimed Auatin socialites who took the 4am booze cruise 2-3 years back and hit the unlighted dock?

That story went quiet.  

 

Quote

Oct. 11, 2015

AUSTIN -- Two people died Sunday morning after a boat crash on Lake Austin near Emma Long Park, according to Austin-Travis County EMS and police.

Houston resident Shawn Hurwitz, 50, and Jennifer Elizabeth Walley, 34, of Austin died in the crash, according to spokespeople from each family.

Police said Hurwitz was steering the boat with two women -- including Walley -- and two men aboard when the boat slammed into a steel barge at Emma Long Park shortly after 5 a.m. Police also said the boat was going 40 miles per hour at the time of the crash.

Hurwitz died in the crash. The Austin Fire Department rescued the others from the boat, and they were transported to University Medical Center-Brackenridge. APD said around 9:30 a.m. Walley died after being transported to the hospital. Three other people were hurt, and one is recovering from surgery.

The barge, according to police, supports heavy equipment while workers build a dock. The yellow lights on the barge were working when the crash occurred and crews worked to repair the damage Monday.

A family friend, J. Kent "Kenny" Friedman, said the ski boat is registered to Hurwitz, who was the CEO of a real estate investment company. Friedman released a statement on behalf of the family:

"Shawn Hurwitz's generous spirit and huge heart touched so many people over the years that this news will be devastating to people across the state and nation," the statement read in part. "We will share more information about the accident, services and remembrance as is appropriate and it becomes known to us. Please keep the Hurwitz family and the families of the others involved in the accident in your hearts and prayers in the days ahead."

"I woke up to a text -- I get alerts -- I read about a boating accident," said Hurwitz's friend Jill Sterkel. She first met Hurwitz and his wife at the University of Texas when they were students. Sterkel was Debbie Hurwitz's assistant swim coach. "You know anytime you see that, it's just awful; and went about my day. I was at church, and on the way out of church I learned that I actually knew someone in it. It's just devastating."

A person related to Walley released a statement on behalf of the family Monday.

"... Mother, daughter, granddaughter, professional and friend to so many," the statement read in part. "Jennifer touched the lives of so many and pursued all of her roles with passion and energy that few, if any, could match."

Walley leaves behind a 3-year-old son and many loved ones.

When police arrived at the crash, the boat had already started to sink. Investigators said only one person was wearing a life jacket at the time. Marcus Davis with Austin police said a lack of light may have been a factor in the cause of the crash.

"They did not see what was in the water and this may have been prevented if it was daylight," Davis said.

Police have not discussed what led up to the accident, but Butch Vander-Woude, a campgoer at Emma Long said he saw the boat and heard the crash.

"He had his bow light on, music real loud, and he had the boat at full speed," he said.

The Emma Long Boat Ramp was closed on Sunday while authorities investigated the collision.

Friedman, the family's friend, said Hurwitz leaves behind a wife and two kids. Sterkel said Hurwitz's funeral won't be before Friday because that is his daughter's birthday.

"Shawn is just so full of life. He had a great smile and just a good person," Sterkel said. "Because I met Shawn through Debbie, to me it's Shawn and Debbie -- so I think that's going to be hard."

Police said this is an open, criminal investigation, but will likely not charge the driver of the boat since he is deceased. The morning of the crash, police received at least two 911 calls complaining of loud music and giggling coming from the boat.

Police are looking into alcohol and the speed of the ski boat as factors in the crash.

 

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Stoogey

Stoogey 219

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Feb 26, 2016

A boat driver who died in a Lake Austin boat crash last year that also killed another person had an alcohol blood level that was more than four times the legal limit, according to a toxicology report obtained by the American-Statesman.

The Dec. 12 report from the Travis County medical examiner’s office found that 50-year-old Shawn Hurwitz had an alcohol blood level of 0.27 percent. The medical examiner determined that Hurwitz died as a result of blunt force injuries and the manner of death was an accident.

Shawn Michael Hurwitz, the head of the Houston-based investment firm Maxxam,Inc., was operating a boat on Oct. 11 when it crashed with a barge near Emma Long Metropolitan Park. Jennifer Elizabeth Walley, 34, also died in the crash. Three other people were injured.

According to a Texas Park & Wildlife crash report obtained by KXAN, Hurwitz, Walley and the three other people in the boat had been drinking and open liquor bottles were found on board.

 

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troph

troph 24783

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30-40 mph in that boat is dangerous even in day light. I boat at night but I’m one turn away from the marina at most, don’t go over 10-12 mph. And I’m headed in by 930-10pm. 11pm or later? Fucking stupid. That trek from where he was apparently to lakeway is a haul and has several tricky spots that require great attention and your phone gps app up and going. That guy was shitfaced, no two ways about it.

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South Austin

South Austin 52464

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In an arrest affidavit, parks and wildlife investigator Adam Alvarez said two of the five passengers were taken by helicopter to the hospital after the crash, which happened just before 11 p.m., including one who had fractured facial bones, fractured ribs and a fractured vertebra.

Wow, he really fucked up one of his partners.  Impressive that there's not one rat among them.

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Wally Fairway

Wally Fairway 5543

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On ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 3:34 PM, Planet Houston said:

It hit the WSJ.  The boat was going over 30 mph.  I still can't believe nobody was killed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-investigators-seek-felony-fleeing-the-scene-charge-against-prominent-oil-lawyer-1530187200

Texas authorities are seeking to charge a prominent oil-patch lawyer with a felony, according to a criminal complaint that alleges he fled the scene of a boat wreck that left three of his partners hospitalized.

A judge signed a felony arrest warrant last Thursday for Douglas McWilliams, a partner at Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP, but recalled it a day later. Mr. McWilliams’s lawyer said he requested the recall to allow him to persuade prosecutors that charges aren’t justified. The Travis County District Attorney’s office said it was unable to comment on a “pending matter.”

Detectives from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, which filed the complaint and the arrest warrant, say they have been investigating the incident since May 10, when they and several other law-enforcement agencies, paramedics and firefighters were called to a late-night boat crash at Lake Travis, a man-made reservoir on the Colorado River outside Austin.

Mr. McWilliams and investigators say they agree on several facts: That he had been steering his 23-foot power boat with five of his law partners aboard when it slammed into a rocky peninsula called Graveyard Point, that he wasn’t present at the crash site when rescuers arrived, and that he turned up about five hours later, just before 4 a.m., ringing the gate buzzer at a nearby estate asking for help.

In a sworn statement that his lawyer said he has shared with prosecutors in hopes of staving off an arrest, Mr. McWilliams said he left the wreckage to find help, became disoriented, fainted from the pain of a shoulder separated when he was thrown from the boat and was menaced by “what sounded like a very vicious sounding dog” before he found the call box. He said he was unaware of how much time had passed since he had set off.

In their own sworn statements, some of his law partners present at the lake that night said they feared in the moment that he was dead.

Investigators said in their criminal complaint that they too believed the situation grave, and the helicopter summoned to fly two of the injured lawyers to an Austin hospital was diverted to first look for Mr. McWilliams. Another helicopter, equipped with a spotlight and thermal-imaging gear, joined rescue boats and 16 flashing police cars in the search, investigators said.

“It’s ridiculous and insulting to me to suggest that I’d run and hide while my colleagues were suffering in an attempt to avoid responsibility for anything,” Mr. McWilliams said.

“The facts as we understand them do not support this attempt by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to obtain an arrest warrant,” a Vinson & Elkins spokesman said. “We are fully supporting Doug and all of our attorneys involved in this unfortunate accident.”

Founded in 1917 at the dawn of the oil era in Houston, V&E has become one of the country’s largest and most profitable firms thanks to the U.S. shale boom. Mr. McWilliams, 48, is a top earner at V&E, whose senior lawyers routinely rake in multimillion-dollar paychecks, according to people familiar with the matter.

He leads a team of lawyers who advise wildcatters, rig owners and others on stock offerings and bond deals. Last year, he worked on two of the oil industry’s biggest mergers, and in 2016 his team had a hand in 10 of 13 U.S. energy IPOs. Mr. McWilliams and the firm especially dominate the field of master limited partnerships, pipeline-owning entities that avoid corporate taxes by paying out profits to shareholders. These entities have proliferated as the country’s energy supply routes have been redrawn.

State investigators estimate in their crash report that the boat was traveling between 30 and 40 miles an hour when it zipped past the wrong side of a lighted buoy and crashed. The boat, a Nautique Super Air, rolled over at least once as it skipped ashore. All but one of the lawyers were flung from it, according to the lawyers’ affidavits. One woman broke her clavicle, ribs and a tooth, according to the complaint. Another fractured facial bones, ribs and vertebrae. A male partner had a head injury.

In their sworn statements, Mr. McWilliams’s co-workers described a sedate, catered dinner earlier in the night. Attendees were partners involved in the firm’s capital-markets practice and a few support employees in town for a day of meetings at a resort on the lake. Mr. McWilliams invited everyone to dinner at the waterfront home he and his wife bought last summer. Alcohol was consumed, but modestly, they said. Several of the lawyers were anxious about getting back to their hotel rooms to work a bit before bed. When the hotel shuttle was delayed, Mr. McWilliams offered a ride in his boat. Several swore that Mr. McWilliams didn’t appear drunk.

Investigators say they never had a chance to test him for intoxication after he turned up because he was whisked away by an ambulance to a nearby medical center for treatment. Mr. McWilliams said in his own affidavit that he told the paramedics who tended him in the early morning that he had had “a couple of drinks much earlier in the evening,” but also that he takes “great offense” to investigators’ suspicions about his sobriety at the time of the crash.

I wouldn't feel bad if this incident had a negative impact on V&E, as a firm, as IMO they basically skated scot-free from their involvement in Enron.

(to be clear, my statement is not related to Mr. McWilliams or the other involved - as they will have to deal with this incident individually)

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heinhorn

heinhorn 16

Posted
Posted
On 6/26/2018 at 9:13 PM, Chet Steadman said:

This reminds me, what ever came of the self-proclaimed Auatin socialites who took the 4am booze cruise 2-3 years back and hit the unlighted dock?

That story went quiet.  

He was actually from Houston.  Story went quiet because the boat driver was dead.  And the family (very wealthy with an interesting history google Maxxam inc.) wrote a huge check to the family of the young lady who died.  Really sad deal.  

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