Miami (AFP) – Tiger Woods’s prescription drug records will be made available to prosecutors after the golf superstar’s March arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence, a Florida judge ruled on Tuesday. Judge Darren Steele approved an agreement between Woods’s defense attorney and prosecutors in a brief hearing in Martin County circuit court, court documents showed.
Woods’s attorney Douglas Duncan had opposed the prosecution’s April request to subpoena the records, arguing that Woods had a right to privacy unless the state could convince the court that the records were relevant to the criminal investigation. At Tuesday’s hearing, which Woods did not attend, both parties agreed to the release of the records and agreed that a protective order would be issued making them available only to prosecutors, law enforcement, expert witnesses, and his defense team. The records will not be available through Florida open records law and will be shielded from public view.
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Woods, 50, pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence in a March 27 road accident in which his vehicle clipped a truck while attempting to overtake on a residential road. Woods’s SUV flipped onto its side and slid to a stop, the golfer climbing out the passenger side. Authorities determined he had not been drinking alcohol but found that he appeared to be impaired and he was found with two pills containing hydrocodone, an opioid painkiller, in his pocket.
Woods, who refused to take a urine analysis test, was charged with misdemeanor DUI and refusal to submit to a lawful test and distracted driving. In April, prosecutors requested access to copies of “any and all prescription medication” on file for Woods, to include the dates and times prescriptions were filled, dosage amounts and instructions, and “all warnings including but not limited to operating a motor vehicle while taking the prescription.”
The 15-time major champion told officers at the scene that he had been looking at his phone and hadn’t realized the truck and trailer had slowed in front of him. Woods, who has undergone multiple back operations and surgeries on severe leg injuries that he suffered in a 2021 California car crash, said in a statement days after the accident that he was “stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health.” The court granted him permission to leave the country, and he is believed to have entered a treatment facility in Switzerland.
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