Paul Pelosi, the 86-year-old husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been charged over an alleged hit-and-run in California wine country earlier this month.
Authorities say Pelosi is accused of striking an unoccupied parked car on the shoulder of a road shortly after 2:30 p.m. on July 3 in Yountville, a small Napa Valley town known for its wineries and restaurants.
The Napa County District Attorney’s Office filed a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge against Pelosi on Friday.
According to the criminal complaint, Pelosi allegedly made an unsafe movement that damaged a parked Tesla, then left the area without attempting to notify the owner or provide the required information.
Deputies later located Pelosi roughly half a mile from the site of the reported crash.
He allegedly told law enforcement officers that he intended to return to the crash scene.
During a police interview after the incident, Pelosi said he realized he had hit something but did not know what it was, and continued driving until his vehicle stopped running.
“He drove until his car became disabled and was no longer able to continue driving,” the Napa Valley Police Department said.
Nancy Pelosi’s 86-year-old husband Paul has been charged in connection with a hit-and-run earlier this month
The sheriff’s department said Paul Pelosi’s brown colored convertible crashed into a parked car on a roadway in Yountville, California
Paul Pelosi is scheduled to appear in court in Napa County on August 14.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Congresswoman Pelosi for comment.
Pelosi was driving close to the palatial vineyard estate he shares with Speaker Emeritus Nancy in upscale St Helena when he smashed into a parked car.
Cops say, rather than stopping, Paul continued to drive his brown convertible until it shuddered to a halt and blocked an intersection – the exact spot he previously got a DUI in 2022.
Paul has since ‘personally apologized to the owner of the vehicle and assured them that he would take responsibility for the damage to their vehicle,’ a spokesperson for the Pelosi family told the Daily Mail, noting the former Speaker ‘will not be commenting further on this private matter.’
Napa Valley police sources told the Daily Mail that his car sustained severe damage to the front right, while the empty car he hit was left needing serious repairs to the back.
The latest incident marks the second time Pelosi has been busted by cops in Yountville, having previously been arrested for a DUI in 2022.
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On that occasion, he was hauled off to jail after crashing his 2021 Porsche on the way home from a dinner party in nearby Oakville.
The smash, which saw him collide with a vehicle driven by a man called Jesus Lopez, left him unharmed but did see him booked on charges of being over the legal limit.
He later pleaded guilty and was handed three years’ probation by a Napa County judge.
Pelosi’s checkered history of crashing cars also includes a more serious wreck when he was a teenager that killed his brother David, then 19.
Pelosi was just 16 and a high school sophomore when his sports car flipped over in February 1957.
A newspaper report at the time said Paul would be cited for misdemeanor manslaughter. In the end, there was no court case, and he was exonerated by a coroner’s jury.
His brother had urged him to drive slower before the fatal smash, according to a patrolman quoted by the San Francisco Examiner.
‘This is a bad stretch – better slow down,’ David is said to have told his younger brother as he approached a tight curve near the Crystal Springs Dam on the Skyline Highway – now California State Route 35.
Pelosi told Patrolman Thomas Ganley he tried to slow by shifting gears in the stick shift car, but lost control.
‘The car veered across the road, bounced back from a small embankment, climbed 20 feet up another, spun around and somersaulted simultaneously and ended upside down on the shoulder with both youths underneath,’ reported the Examiner.
Tragically, David was declared dead on arrival in hospital in San Mateo, with the coroner later finding his death was due to him being strangled by the neck brace he was wearing.
Despite the early tragedy, Pelosi went on to become a successful businessman – making his Democrat wife Nancy one of the richest members of Congress.
Along with the lavish $25 million St Helena estate, the Pelosis also own a huge townhouse in San Francisco, as well as two commercial buildings, which each rake in an income of between $100,000 and $1 million per year in rental income.
On top of that, the couple own a share in the $2,205-a-night Auberge du Solel – a five-star Napa Valley hotel, which is known for hosting famous guests, among them Sting, Bob Dylan and late greats Olivia Newton-John, and Robert Redford.
In total, the couple are believed to be worth between $114 million and $400 million – mostly driven by high performing property investments made by Paul and stocks in businesses ranging from Google parent company Alphabet to American Express.
This is a developing story.
