A Yellowknife woman named by police as the driver who crashed a truck into Sushi Cafe last summer has pleaded guilty to impaired driving.
Kimberly Ongahak, 36, pleaded guilty to the charge in NWT territorial court on Tuesday.
In the early hours of July 15, a Ford F150 truck plowed into the front of Sushi Cafe, a restaurant located on Franklin Avenue, causing substantial damage to the building. The truck was found partially inside the restaurant.
On Aug. 15, almost a month later, Ongahak was charged with impaired driving, taking a vehicle without the owner's consent and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. Following her guilty plea to the impaired driving charge, the Crown expects to withdraw the remaining charges.
But as public search warrants reveal, Yellowknife were uncertain at first if Ongahak was actually behind the wheel. Around 5 a.m., according to the documents, which haven't been tested in court, a man was awoken to a loud crash near his home. The man looked out his window and saw a woman walking away from the nearby smoldering wreckage. The man, the records state, confronted the woman and she allegedly told him she didn't have a license. She was allegedly slurring her speech and staggering.
Ongahak was detained that morning, but Mounties released her on the same day due to a lack of evidence. Two witnesses sitting on a bench in front of Mildred Hall at the time of the crash, according to files, told police a blonde-haired man had exited the truck SA国际影视传媒� not a woman.
Records reveal 's efforts to obtain DNA from Ongahak in order to compare the sample to DNA collected from the truck.
It's unclear at this time whether the sought-after-samples were used as grounds for Ongahak's arrest a month later.
On Sept. 6, Ongahak paid two fines in relation to the crash. After being convicted of driving without a licence and failing to remain at the scene of an accident, she paid $920 in total fines.
Ongahak also pleaded guilty to one count of assault alleged to have occurred on the same day as the crash
Ongahak will be back in court on March 8 for a sentencing hearing.
