Remember Rebecca Lee McLaughlin, who tried to run over a sheriff's special officer on bike patrol in the John Wayne Airport parking garage last year? The 49-year-old Newport Beach resident, who was originally charged with attempted murder and a sentencing
enhancement for attempted premeditated murder, copped to assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury on Tuesday.
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Rebecca Lee McLaughlin Arraignment Delayed in Alleged Attempted Murder of Airport Officer
The bicycle officer heard what sounded like a collision in the parking garage on July 16, 2013, and was directed by a witness toward a dark-colored Toyota Sequoia, according to sheriff's Lt. Jeff Hallock, the department spokesman.
Driver McLaughlin suddenly backed up and drove toward the officer, who ended up on her hood and was thrown 20 feet, explained Hallock, who added that despite injuries that would send him to the hospital, he still managed to pull McLaughlin out of the vehicle and arrest her–after her SUV had jumped a curb and slammed into a pole.
Oh, yeah, the unidentified officer's bike was destroyed also.
McLaughlin is due back on Orange County Superior Court for sentencing on Sept. 12.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.