As reported by the Associated Press:A man charged in a fatal October accident on Interstate 77 in Charlotte remains in jail after being arrested over the weekend. The arrest came after Police lost track of him while he was being treated at a Chapel Hill hospital. Albert Lamont Pharr is being held at the Mecklenburg County Jail on charges of second-degree murder and felony death by vehicle following his arrest early Saturday by federal marshals.
Investigators lost track of Pharr while he was being treated at the N.C. Jaycee Burn Center following an Oct. 12 crash that killed James Walter Johnson.Pharr was somehow released from the burn center without being taken into custody. But federal marshals searching for Pharr on charges that he violated his bond in a federal drug and weapons case when he was involved in the October crash began investigating last week.
At 3 a.m. Saturday, Pharr was spotted entering a house in Charlotte; marshals found him inside a closet.Highway Patrol Sgt. Joe Mellone said Pharr apparently was released from the burn center without hospital officials ever notifying law enforcement.
"He was released from the hospitals and went about his business and fortunately enough the U.S. marshals'' caught up with him, Mellone said. Mellone said privacy rules that are part of the Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act that went into effect in 2003 have made some hospitals reluctant to inform law enforcement officials when people charged with crimes are being released. "There's really not a protocol there,'' he said. "You're on delicate ground because of the HIPAA law. You try to keep open lines of communication, but short of putting someone there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, something like this could occur.
''UNC Health Care spokeswoman Stephanie Crayton said that when law enforcement officials provide hospital police with a name and a copy of an arrest warrant, system policy states that hospital police may notify law enforcement before the patient's discharge.In this case, she said, "hospital police say they have no record of any dealings with law enforcement pertaining to Mr. Pharr.'' Crayton added that she is not aware of any cases at UNC where HIPAA rules have gotten in the way of officials being notified of a criminal defendant's discharge.
Troopers who investigated the crash in which Pharr is charged said he was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic on I-77 in Charlotte. When he drove into the emergency lane to pass a tractor-trailer, they said, he ran into a Jeep Cherokee that was stopped there.Johnson, 32, was sitting inside the stopped car and died at the scene.Also in Pharr's car was his 1-year-old child, who was strapped into a car seat and was not seriously injured.
In addition to the murder and felony death charges, Pharr also is accused of driving while impaired, careless and reckless driving, improper use of a lane, improper passing, not decreasing speed to avoid hitting another vehicle, having no license and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Pharr has prior drunken driving charges on his record and has been convicted of armed robbery, accessory after the fact of a murder and felony cocaine possession.