A Chicago man whose high-speed crash killed a passenger over the weekend was convicted of another death while driving drunk on the South Side two decades ago, Cook County prosecutors alleged Tuesday.
Dwayne Montgomery, 37, who has a history of DUI convictions, had a blood alcohol content nearly four times the legal limit after the Saturday afternoon crash, prosecutors said. He has never been issued a driver’s license, according to the Illinois secretary of state’s office.
Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered Montgomery held on $1 million bail on one felony count of aggravated driving under the influence involving death.
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Montgomery crashed into a light pole about 1 p.m. while driving his girlfriend’s Dodge Intrepid at high speed in the 8100 block of South Chicago Avenue, shearing off the passenger side of the car and severing his passenger’s right arm, Assistant State’s Attorney Alex Molesky said. The car then went airborne and struck a parked Honda Pilot, she said.
The passenger, Tremayne Bonds, 44, was ejected from the car. He was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
A witness told police that he saw Montgomery driving the car but that after the crash Montgomery denied being behind the wheel, Molesky said.
“I was not the driver — he was the driver. I told him to let me drive,” the witness quoted Montgomery as saying while standing next to the mortally wounded Bonds, according to a police report.
Chicago police officers noted that Montgomery’s breath smelled of alcohol, that he was slurring his speech and that his eyes were bloodshot, Molesky said. They found a bottle of vodka in the car, she said.
Prosecutors said Montgomery’s blood alcohol content measured 0.317, nearly four times the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Montgomery was previously convicted of reckless homicide nearly 20 years ago. He was speeding with his headlights off on Dec. 26, 1995, when he blew a red light near 55th Place and Martin Luther King Drive and broadsided another car, killing Lucius McSwain, 70, according to court records.
Montgomery’s blood alcohol level at the time was about three times the legal limit, Molesky said. Montgomery pleaded guilty to one count of reckless homicide in 1996 and was sentenced to four years in prison, court records show.
Montgomery also was convicted of aggravated driving under the influence in 2004 and was sentenced to three years in prison, the prosecutor said. He also pleaded guilty in 2001 after another crash to driving under the influence and was sentenced to three years in prison, according to a secretary of state spokesman and court records.
His attorney said Montgomery graduated from DuSable High School in 1995, has one adult son and had been working as a mover.
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