This isn't a story about one bad Fourth of July weekend for Paul Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi. It's a story about a seventy year pattern of driving deaths and accidents.
Paul Pelosi was 16 years old in 1957 when he was involved in a car crash that killed his 19-year-old brother David. A coroner's jury exonerated him. He was 82 when he was arrested for DUI in Napa County, convicted, sentenced to five days in county jail, and released after two. In the decades between those two events, court records document at least eight additional driving violations — speeding, red light infractions, wrong-way driving.
Now he's 86. Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley has formally charged Paul Pelosi with misdemeanor hit-and-run and an unlawful turn after he struck a legally parked Tesla with his Maserati convertible in Yountville on the Fourth of July — and drove away. No injuries were reported, and authorities say alcohol was not involved this time — which, given his history, counts as progress.
He didn't turn himself in. A witness called 911. Police located Pelosi because his Maserati had become inoperable, not because he came forward voluntarily. His explanation to officers: he "struck something but wasn't aware of what it was."
He hit a car. He didn't know what he hit. He left.
The Pelosi family released a statement saying he "has personally apologized to the owner of the vehicle and assured them that he would take responsibility for the damage." The damage. Not the crime of leaving the scene. The damage.
Here's where it gets complicated for his legal team. The 2022 DUI conviction came with three years of probation — which should still be active. Whether a new misdemeanor hit-and-run complicates that arrangement is a question his very expensive attorneys are presumably working through right now. For a regular citizen on DUI probation who drove away from an accident, that conversation with a public defender would be brief and not particularly encouraging.
The maximum sentence is six months in county jail and a $1,000 fine. His court date is August 14th.
The Pelosi family has spent decades in the upper atmosphere of American political life. Nancy Pelosi said the words "nobody is above the law" during not one but two separate impeachment proceedings. The phrase was practically a bumper sticker. Her husband has now accumulated a DUI conviction, a hit-and-run charge, and a driving record that began with a fatal accident at sixteen — while serving less time behind bars than most people spend on a delayed flight out of SFO.
The Maserati, for its part, is presumably still getting repaired.
