Texas drops DUI charge against billionaire Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton

Highway patrol officer who pulled her over in 2011 has been suspended and can't testify

Walton was arrested on her 62nd birthday in Texas

Walton is worth an estimated $27 billion



[digg]

Prosecutors in Texas have dropped a 2011 drunken driving citation against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton.

The highway patrol officer who pulled over Walton, 63, has been suspended and won't be available to testify, officials said yesterday.

Parker County, Texas, Prosecutor John Forest told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his office had two years to pursue the case against Walton. But the trooper's suspension won't be over by the Oct. 7 deadline.

Prosecutors in Texas have dropped a 2011 drunken driving citation against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton (pictured in Arkansas in 2011)

Forrest said the trooper is on paid leave. The suspension for alleged misconduct began in February.

Walton's attorney, Dee Kelly of Fort Worth, says the matter has been resolved without a formal charge being filed.

The arrest came about a month before the opening of the Walton-backed Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.



Alice Walton's mugshot after the 2011 arrest in Texas

Walton was arrested on her 62nd birthday when was stopped at an Intestate in Parker County Texas for a traffic violation.

Texas Highway patrol Trooper Gary Rozzell said at the time: 'Through an investigation at the scene, Walton was determined to be intoxicated during a field sobriety test.'

He also said she refused a breath test, according to the Weatherford Democrat.

She was booked and released on $1,000 bond.

A statement from a family spokesman said: 'Ms Walton was pulled over by a patrolman with the Department of Public Safety for driving 71 mph in an unattended 55 mph construction zone.

'She was returning home from a birthday dinner with friends at a Fort Worth restaurant. She accepts full responsibility for this unfortunate incident and deeply regrets it.'

The DUI arrest was not Walton’s first.

According to information from the Springdale District Court in Arkansas, Walton was convicted of driving under the influence in a 1998 case. According to the UK's Independent, she hit a gas meter and told the responding police officer: 'I'm Alice Walton, bitch!'

She paid a several hundred dollar fine in that case, according to other news reports and served no jail time.



No previous conviction showed up on her criminal history so Walton was charged Friday with a first offence DWI, according to Rozzell.

Alice Walton, Jim Walton (left) and Rob Walton (right), chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., speak at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in June 2012

Previous news accounts state Walton was also involved in a 1989 wreck in Arkansas that resulted in the death of a 50-year-old woman.



No charges were filed at that time.

In October 2012 Walton was worth about $27 billion, making her the second-richest American woman, tenth-richest American and 14th richest person in the world.



Walton purchased her first piece of art when she was about ten years old and this interest led to her spearheading the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

