|
 From Land O' Lakes, FL - Michael Francis Wiley is a triple amputee. A triple amputee that that has been pulled over so many times that he commits a felony anytime he gets behind the wheel.
He's 40 years old and lost both arms and left leg in 1980 when he was 13. He fell off an elevated train platform while playing on an abandoned switching station in New York City. He grabbed a live electrical line to break his fall, made contact with the track and 11,000 volts surged through his body.
To exert is independance, he taught himself how to drive, starting the car with this toes, shifting with his knees and steers with his stump. He even turns on the headlights with his teeth.
 "I'm an excellent driver," Wiley said. "It is something I can do well by myself. I've been thoroughly tested by the department of motor vehicles and I passed with flying colors."
Any law enforcement officer over the past 20 years, that has ever pursued him in a high-speed chase, might disagree.
He once had a valid license, but it has been suspended several times for motor vehicle and drug infractions. Wiley has said he turned to drugs — both prescription and illegal — to numb his chronic pain.
He's been accused of everything from sneaking drugs into jail in his prosthetic leg, possessing marijuana while driving to kicking a Florida Highway Patrol officer investigating a crash. He's led police on chases.
In 1992, the state declared him a habitual violator and revoked his license for five years. He was caught speeding again less than six months later.
And again three months after that.
And again 16 days after that.
One night in Hudson in October 1996, a maroon Pontiac smashed another car and drove away, trailing debris. A witness called authorities. A state trooper saw a damaged Pontiac outside a nearby house. He touched the hood. Still hot.
Out came Wiley's wife, Wendy. She said it was her car, according to the trooper's report. She said she crashed and got scared and came home.
The trooper didn't believe her. He asked again. Who was driving?
My husband, she said. Michael Wiley.
Then Wiley came out. There was a struggle. He kicked the trooper's knee. He lay down on the patrol car's seat and kicked the door into the trooper's chest.
Wiley was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident and battery on a law enforcement officer. But he maintains he wasn't driving that night. He insists the trooper pressed that charge out of spite and embarrassment.
"It'd be kind of hard to live it down in the locker room," he would say nearly 10 years later, "if a no-armed man put you on your a-- twice."
It is June 1, 2006. The latest charges involve cocaine and marijuana and habitual traffic violation. Even his mother says she is no longer behind him.
"I'm an excellent driver," he says. "If I could just get my license back, I'd never be in here again."
Jail hurts. Jail especially hurts if you have only one good limb, if you depend on others to help feed you, dress you, take you to the bathroom.
His attorney, John D. Hooker of Tampa, says Wiley gets so frustrated in jail that he provokes the detention deputies. This makes things worse. Wiley claims that over the years he has been beaten, pepper-sprayed, left in a holding cell for days with no way to eat but to dip his face in his food.
He says he needs medication to manage his pain. In 2003, he was caught trying to smuggle Xanax and Valium into jail hidden inside his prosthetic leg.
During that 30-day sentence, he asked a fellow inmate to feed him. When the man agreed, Wiley found himself beholden to a violent criminal.
He let the man and his wife stay at his house when he got out. The man was later convicted of killing her in Wiley's living room while Wiley and his family slept.
Wiley's daughter, Felicia, is 16. "She's the breath in my lungs," he says. He taught her how to drive. Her license was recently suspended because she missed too much school. He says his prison time made her rebel.
His lawyer wishes he would buy 5 acres, cut private roads and do all the unlicensed driving he wants. His mother thinks he should build his own racetrack.
Wiley wanted to buy an RV and take his wife across America. But he and his wife separated in July for reasons he won't discuss, and his driver's license is revoked until 2009.
When asked what he would give to get his license back right now, he does not smile or hesitate:
"I'd give my right leg."
|
- Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article.
- Personal verbal attacks will be deleted.
- Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed.
- Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button.
- Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
|
Views: 241 | E-mail
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved
|
Be first to comment this article
