Attorneys representing John’s Island widow Frances Ingraham and her late husband’s estate gambled big on convincing a jury to award them millions in damages from deep-pocketed Orchid resident Paul Danielsen for involvement in causing a deadly May 2022 car crash.
Their case, which in the courtroom appeared to be based heavily on Danielsen’s sketchy behavior after the crash, failed epically.
In the end, the jury awarded a $29 million verdict solely against Paul Danielsen’s penniless wife, drunk driver Elizabeth Jewkes-Danielsen, for causing the crash. But she’s awaiting a June 13 sentencing and appears on her way to prison, probably for a decade or more.
Jewkes-Danielsen, 63, a retired teacher of special needs students, says she has no assets, having cashed out her North Carolina teachers’ pension and drained her savings to pay nearly three years of criminal and civil defense attorneys’ fees. While out on bond since her arrest, she has collected $1,133 per month from Social Security.
If all she has is her Social Security benefit, it would take roughly 2,133 years to pay off the $29 million judgment to 84-year-old Frances Ingraham and to Christopher Ingraham’s estate.
Jewkes-Danielsen said when she divorced her first husband, her share of the sale of the family home went toward college expenses for her two children. She moved to Florida either six or seven years ago – she could not remember exactly – and got a sales job at the J. McLaughlin clothing store in the Village Shops in Indian River Shores.
She said she would work up to 50 hours a week, as many as she could get, as she had executed a pre-nuptial agreement in August 2019 with her soon-to-be second husband, Paul Danielson, a successful federal appeals court attorney from California, that gave her nothing and he never supported her.
“He didn’t even pay my bail,” Jewkes-Danielsen told the jurors, adding that friends have sent her money over the past three years to help with groceries.
The couple has not filed for divorce, but Jewkes-Danielsen said she owns nothing, not even a vehicle, only a bicycle.
In a separate criminal case for the same May 10, 2022, crash on A1A in Indian River Shores, Jewkes-Danielsen pleaded guilty to felony vehicular homicide, which carries up to 15 years in prison, and Circuit Judge Robert Meadows accepted that open plea last month.
On June 13th, he will accept her pending guilty pleas to felony DUI manslaughter for the death of Christopher Ingraham and felony DUI causing great bodily harm for Frances Ingraham’s injuries. Those two DUI charges must be sentenced the same day as the judge accepts the defendant’s change of plea.
Though the sentences for the three serious crimes could be served concurrently if Meadows allows that, Jewkes-Danielsen faces up to 35 years in prison if Meadows maxes out the sentences and orders they be served consecutively.
From the witness stand on the final morning of the punitive damage phase of the civil trial, criminal defense attorney Andy Metcalf told the jury that, based upon his client being a first-time offender and various other factors, the sentencing rubric recommends nearly 14 years in a Florida prison for Jewkes-Danielsen, with a minimum of four years.
Metcalf was called in to solve a problem for Danielsen. She wanted the jury to hear of her guilty plea and upcoming punishment, but she also wanted to exercise her Fifth Amendment rights about the crash and the criminal charges. So Metcalf bridged that gap with his testimony.
Meadows could deviate upward or downward from the recommended sentence.
Hearing Jewkes-Danielsen’s testimony at the civil trial, which with eight lawyers dragged on for seven days, did provide a glimpse into what she’ll say at her criminal sentencing before Meadows next week.
During the pre-verdict phase of the civil trial, Jewkes-Danielsen managed to appear largely detached from the tedious court proceedings – oblivious to the droning on of all the attorneys doing battle, objecting and cross-examining or approaching the bench, and the frequent delays and breaks. Her face showed little emotion or reaction to the courtroom drama.
She often sat reading a paperback book when court was in recess, or seemed not particularly interested in the attorneys’ dueling aerial maps of A1A, the traffic crash experts and the comings and goings of the witnesses.
The only time Jewkes-Danielsen showed joy was when the jury returned a verdict letting Paul Danielsen off with no financial liability.
But on the final day of court it was her turn, her chance to evoke sympathy from the jurors before they deliberated on punitive damages. She had to be engaged. She had to show her humanity.
Jewkes-Danielsen said she hopes to use her 21 years of teaching experience while in prison.
“What are your goals for your time incarcerated?” she was asked on the stand.
“Well, I have my Master’s, so I would like to do a Doctorate of Biblical Studies and or Theology. I would love to perhaps teach the incarcerated women. And to, um, encourage them to further their education, if they have that desire. And to lead them to the Lord,” Jewkes-Danielsen said.
“Do you feel remorse?” her lawyer asked.
“Every day, every hour of the day,” she replied.
Expressing regret for her crimes and swearing never to drink alcohol again, Jewkes-Danielsen remained composed through almost all of her testimony – until one of her lawyers asked about her two adult children.
The gravity of hard prison time, and the years she’d miss with her kids and grandkids, seemed to drastically hit her. All her reserve was shattered.
“I have a 31-year-old son named Christian, and I have a daughter named Faith, who will be 30 in August,” she said.
She broke down in tears only when faced with how she had and would continue to hurt her own family – not when contemplating her actions’ impact on the Ingraham family.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
