Mitchell woman pleads not guilty to stealing, crashing vehicles

A Mitchell woman charged with multiple felonies for allegedly stealing and crashing two vehicles on Sept. 17 is denying the charges against her.

Jade Dora Abdo, 23, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to two counts of grand theft, one count of first-offense drunken driving and one count of intentional property damage.

The charges stem from an incident that, according to court documents, began at approximately 2:13 a.m. Sept. 17 when law enforcement received a 911 call from residents at a home on Betts Road in rural Davison County. They reported an intoxicated woman who came to their door asking for directions, then left in a pickup.

Shortly after that, another 911 caller reported a small fire in the area. South Dakota Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Podzimek responded to the call.

After following nearby tracks where a vehicle appeared to have entered the ditch, crashed through several fences and drove through cornfields and pastures, Podzimek allegedly found Abdo slumped behind the wheel of a Ford F-250 pickup at the intersection of 400th Avenue and 264th Street. The intersection is located southwest of Mitchell about five miles from the home of the residents who called 911.

Abdo’s blood alcohol content was found to be 0.109 around the time of her arrest, court documents say. The legal limit for driving in South Dakota is 0.08.

The rear driver’s side tire was torn off the pickup in the incident, causing the rim to scrape and gouge into the road, court documents say, and about 100 feet of fence wire had caught on the pickup.

According to court documents, the pickup was reported stolen when its owner called the Davison County Sheriff’s Office and reported another vehicle, a Buick LeSabre, was stuck in a manure pile in his yard and his pickup was missing. Inside the LeSabre, law enforcement allegedly found several items with Abdo’s name on them: an envelope, a pay stub, a Social Security card and paperwork from the Yankton Sioux Tribe.

The Buick, too, was later reported stolen out of Mitchell.

Abdo faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine for each theft charge and a maximum of one year in jail and a $2,000 fine for both firstoffense DUI and intentional property damage.

Her trial is set for December.

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