Mom Turned in By Girl for Drunk Driving Checks into Rehab

DETROIT (WJBK) - The woman whose nine-year-old daughter turned her in for drunk driving has checked into rehab.

49-year-old Latanya Evans glared at our camera and appeared near tears as she waited to face a judge on her latest drunk driving charge.

Just a few days ago, Evans was in traffic on 12 Mile Road in Southfield driving with a revoked license. Police say she had a blood alcohol level of 0.25, which is more than three times the legal limit, when her nine-year-old daughter bravely passed a note to a teller at a Bank of America in a desperate plea for help.

"The little girl wrote … my mother is drunk and I don't want to go with her," said Southfield Police Chief Joseph Thomas.

"She's a smart girl, and that alone is an attribute to what type of parenting she's getting at home. My mom is a good mom. She made a mistake," said Jessica Lenyard.

Evans older daughter told reporters she's standing by her mother, who's been battling alcoholism for years. This is Evans' third drunk driving arrest. Her record shows her license was suspended in 2003 and revoked in 2008, but clearly she'd been driving anyway.

"My client has a disease, and as we all know, substance abuse is a very, very difficult thing to combat. She is admittedly an alcoholic, and she is seeking treatment," said attorney Amy Bowen-Krane.

Her attorney told the judge that Evans has checked herself in to a one year residential program where mandatory alcohol testing takes place every day and she cannot leave without being supervised.

"She knows that she has a problem, and she had always told her minor daughter if she ever felt unsafe to let somebody know," Bowen-Krane said.

"My little sister's doing fine. She wants to be back with her mom, so me and my older sister, we have to support my mom so that my sister can get her wish," Lenyard said.

Police say considering Evans' long criminal history, which includes a child endangerment charge from last June, she'll likely face jail time.

She's been ordered to remain in treatment while this case moves forward and her nine-year-old daughter, who's being praised for doing the right thing, will stay with her father.

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