Eva Snow Cleared of Charges

Eva Snow, a South Bay Hospital District board member and wife of former Redondo Beach City Councilman Archie Snow, has been cleared of charges that she was driving under the influence when her car rear-ended another earlier this year.

The district attorney’s office agreed to drop the charges Tuesday in South Bay Municipal Court after conceding that blood tests after the Jan. 17 crash showed that Snow was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

During the hearing Tuesday, Snow pleaded no contest to a charge that she was following too closely when the accident occurred. She will pay $185 in penalties, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Puentes. No one was injured in the collision.

Snow fell under suspicion of drunk driving when a Redondo Beach police officer who witnessed the accident reported that her speech was slurred and that she staggered when she walked.

Defense attorney Steven Berman said that Snow might have behaved oddly because she had just received distressing news. An employee at South Bay Hospital had called her to say that her husband, who was in the hospital for a heart condition, had gone into cardiac arrest, Berman said.

Snow had been napping when she received the call, Berman said. “Any impairment in her driving was due to sleep, distress and worry,” he said.

The former councilman later recovered.