Automotive CEO Charged With Choking Woman Wins Dismissal
Bloomberg
3/15/2021
Gabrielle Coppola
(Bloomberg) -- North Carolina prosecutors have dropped their case against David Smith, the chief executive officer of Sonic Automotive Inc. who was accused of trying to strangle a woman in a domestic dispute last fall.
Smith, son of a billionaire and scion of the powerful family that controls Sonic, was arrested in October and indicted this month. Sonic is one of the largest car dealership chains in the U.S.
The arrest warrant described a man shoving and starting to strangle a woman in her early 20s, knocking a phone out of her hand when she tried to call for help, in the early hours of Oct. 5. Smith, 46, was charged with three misdemeanors: assault on a female, false imprisonment and interference with emergency communications. He was also charged with attempted strangulation of a female, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.