Jill SwaffordAn Athens, Tennessee, city school principal was arrested for boating under the influence on Polk County's Parksville Lake a couple of weekends ago and entered a conditional guilty plea in general sessions court last week that could allow her record to be cleared.
Ingleside Elementary School Principal Jill Lynne Swafford last week entered a conditional guilty plea to charges of BUI and reckless operation stemming from an arrest by a state wildlife official, according to Polk County General Sessions Court records. Swafford declined to comment when contacted Tuesday.
According to a warrant affidavit filed by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Swafford, 54, of Benton, Tennessee, was at the helm of a pontoon boat on Parksville Lake on Saturday, June 12, when TWRA officer Matthew Hammons made contact with her around 6:30 p.m. just outside the Lake Ocoee Marina.
Parksville Lake is the part of the reservoir nearest the Ocoee Dam on the west end of the Ocoee River Gorge in the Cherokee National Forest.
"Mrs. Swafford had an occupant riding outside the gunnels on [the] front of the pontoon boat with his feet hanging over the side between the pontoons," Hammons wrote in his report. "As we approached the vessel, Mrs. Swafford stood up from the helm and walked to the back of the boat and sat down."
During the encounter, Hammons allegedly detected "a strong odor of alcoholic beverages, slurred speech and she couldn't stay on task," he states in the affidavit.
He asked Swafford to don a life jacket and board the TWRA vessel for sobriety tests on which "she performed poorly," he states. She was taken to the Polk County Justice Center, where she was booked on the charges and released on a $1,500 bond the next morning.
According to General Sessions Court records from June 16, Swafford entered a conditional guilty plea before General Sessions Judge Booklynn Townsend to the BUI and reckless operation charges. Townsend suspended sentences on the charges but ordered a $250 fine be paid on each count. Swafford's boating privileges were revoked for a year, records state.
Officials in the Polk County General Sessions Court office said Swafford has paid the $500 in fines in full and is required to stay out of trouble for a year in order for the charges to be dismissed from her record. If those terms are violated within that period, the guilty plea is reinstated with a sentence handed down on the original charges.
The school where Swafford works is one of five in the Athens City Schools system. The system has four elementary schools and a middle school, according to the system website.
Swafford, who has been with the school system for six years, is still on the job at Ingleside Elementary, Athens City Schools director of schools Robert W. Greene said Tuesday in an email. Greene did not comment on Swafford's arrest.
"As far as any disciplinary action, I will be conferring with our [school board] attorney," Greene said.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.