A North Port man was arrested overnight on multiple charges after he was allegedly involved in two separate hit-and-run crashes in the northern area of Port Charlotte.
At about 10:30 Tuesday night, a deputy was flagged down by a woman who witnessed a crash between a dark colored sedan and a friend’s vehicle in the area of US 41 and Pembroke Drive. She told the deputy that the sedan was traveling without any headlights and, after the crash, took off down Pembroke.
When the deputy located her friend’s vehicle, the driver said he was traveling north on US 41 and saw a dark colored sedan stopped at southbound US 41 waiting to turn left onto Pembroke. The driver said the car suddenly turned into his path giving him no time to take evasive action. His car crashed into the passenger side of the sedan. The driver was checked by medical services, but declined transport to a hospital.
While the deputy was dealing with the crash at Pembroke, other deputies located another crash on Warrington Drive, less than two miles away. In that incident, a vehicle had hit a closed garage door of a house and left the scene. They located pieces of the vehicle, including a side mirror and the bumper.
From the debris left at the two scenes, deputies could tell that the vehicle involved in both crashes was dark green. From the pieces left at the Warrington location, they could tell the vehicle was apparently a Volvo.
Shortly before midnight, deputies looking for the Volvo found a vehicle matching the description that also had damages consistent with the two crashes in the area of Viscaya Drive. When the deputy attempted to speak with the man he found sitting in the driver’s seat, the man ran away in between several houses in the area.
K9 deputies tracked the man and located Adam Lee Provencal, 34, of 3048 Lakatos Street in North Port, hiding between a house and a fence shortly after midnight. When deputies attempted to place Provencal under arrest, he resisted efforts to handcuff him by thrashing around on the ground.
After Provencal was taken into custody, deputies noted he had a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from his person and that his speech was slurred. Provencal was allegedly not willing to take a field sobriety test, nor, once at the jail, a breath test.
Provencal was charged with two counts of DUI with Injuries/Property Damage, two counts of Leaving the Scene of a Crash, Resisting Arrest without Violence and Refusal to Submit to a Breath Test. He was being held without bond.