Derrick Coleman to plead not guilty to vehicular assault, felony hit-and-run for 2015 Bellevue crash



SEATTLE -- Former Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman will plead not guilty to charges of Vehicular Assault and Felony Hit-and-Run for a collision last October in Bellevue.

Coleman's attorneys  released a statement on Monday, saying "Derrick will enter a plea of Not Guilty at the arraignment. We look forward to proving his innocence at trial."

King County prosecutors say Coleman's truck rear-ended a car driven by a 57-year-old man who suffered a fractured collar bone when his car flipped upside-down.

Coleman is scheduled to be arraigned on June 16 at the King County Courthouse.

Prosecutors say if convicted of both charges, Coleman could face 12 to 14 months in jail.

According to charging documents released on June 3, Coleman picked up teammate Jeremy Lane at the VMAC and drove him to his Renton area home before heading to Bellevue.



Police claim Coleman was speeding when he smashed his pickup truck into another car on Southeast 36th Street on October 14, 2015. Coleman's truck pushed the Honda Civic up an embankment, turning it upside down and seriously injuring the driver inside.

Coleman then left the scene of the crash without rendering aid, police said at the time.

Coleman was arrested on suspicion of vehicular assault and hit-and-run, but later released pending further investigation, The Seahawks temporarily suspended Coleman, but reinstated him after his release from jail.

In a report later, police said that Coleman admitted to smoking Spice an hour before the crash and that they found several packets of a Spice-type synthetic marijuana in Coleman's truck. However, the police said a blood test did not find Spice in Coleman's system, although the blood test took place nearly seven hours after the crash.

In response to the report, Coleman's attorney, Stephen Hayne, said, "He was not under the influence of anything. They know it, they knew it when they published the report, but the intention is to prejudice the public against him to deny him a fair trial."

Shortly after the accident, defense attorneys for Coleman claimed he fell asleep behind the wheel on his way home from practice. Another suggested he could have suffered a head injury in the collision, explaining why he wandered away.

Shortly after the incident, his lawyers released video of them interviewing Coleman at the police station.