Fired trooper acquitted in parking case

Score one for former state trooper Monty Steven Poarch.

Poarch, who has been fighting to regain his job with the state Highway Patrol, was acquitted in Buncombe County Superior Court last week of charges stemming from a dispute over a parking space at an Asheville restaurant, Steve Riley reports.

The daughter of a Durham assistant district attorney was standing in the space, attempting to hold it for her boyfriend's car, when Poarch slowly drove into the space, forcing her out.

Poarch had been found guilty of a misdemeanor assault charge in district court, but appealed to Superior Court. His attorney, Sean Devereux of Asheville, said that after a two-day trial, the jury found Poarch not guilty after only 25 minutes of deliberation.

"At a time when the state is cutting many vital services, it seems odd to take up three days of Superior Court time over a parking lot squabble," Devereux said.

Poarch, however, had much more on the line than a misdemeanor conviction. He has sued to return to the Highway Patrol after he was fired in 2003 for having sex with a woman in his cruiser and at a patrol station.

An administrative judge found that he should be reinstated because other troopers caught in similar or worse behavior had been allowed to remain on the patrol. The decision made public numerous cases of trooper misconduct over the past decade and created a major embarrassment for the agency.

The patrol and the State Personnel Commission rejected the law judge's finding, and Poarch is now trying to win that case in state Superior Court.