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EXCLUSIVE: Another Main Line Mom Charged With DUI Crash With Child In The Car

By Walt Hunter

VILLANOVA, Pa. (CBS) -- A 32-year-old mother faces drunk driving and child endangerment charges after police say she plowed into the rear of a car Thursday night in Villanova, causing a chain-reaction crash. Officers found her 5-year-old son in the backseat.

Only CBS3 cameras were there as Linde was taken to Montgomery County Prison in lieu of $7,500 bail. She turned her head, refusing to answer questions about the crash.

According to an arrest warrant, an officer "asked Linde if she had been drinking and she stated, 'Well,ya.' Then, according to the warrant, when asked to submit to a field sobriety test, she responded by "stating she was 'smashed' and that she in no way should be operating a motor vehicle."

One other driver in the crash was treated for injuries. Linde's 5-year-old son was not hurt, but police say he was not restrained in a booster seat as required.

Court records show Linde pleaded guilty to drunk driving and causing a serious injury crash following a 2007 accident.

Linde is the third mother charged with driving drunk and crashing her vehicle with her child in the backseat in the past four months in Lower Merion.

Last August, Meredith Williams-Earle was charged in a crash that killed the driver of a flower delivery van while her child was in the backseat. In November, Grace Tuten arrested after crashing into a pole with her 2-year-old son in the backseat. Neither child was hurt.

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