Driver accused of road rage takes deal

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2000 | 11:54 a.m.

Former exotic dancer Alexis Jill Bodkin accepted a plea bargain today to avoid trial next week on two felony counts charging her with creating a road-rage incident on Interstate 15 that killed a California motorcyclist.

Bodkin pleaded no contest to two gross misdemeanor conspiracy charges that will result in a one-year suspended jail term and three years on probation. Formal sentencing is set for March 20 in Chief District Judge Lee Gates' courtroom.

While the no-contest plea permits a judge to declare a person guilty of a crime, it is not an admission of liability for civil cases stemming from the same act.

The 22-year-old defendant is being sued by the family of the motorcyclist who allege she was responsible for the incident on Jan. 28, 1999 just north of Jean.

The incident began when one tractor-trailer tried to pass another but found it didn't have the power.

The two trucks ran side-by-side for several miles while traffic and irritated motorists backed up behind them.

Bodkin was one of them, and her attorney, Richard Wright, conceded early in the case that she joined other cars in passing the trucks on the paved right shoulder.

The attorney had alleged that as she did, the truck in the right lane tried to run her off the road.

But the driver of the other truck, Marianne Reed, told the Nevada Highway Patrol that Bodkin swerved in front of the two trucks and slammed on the brakes of her Lexus.

Reed said that when the Lexus braked, the truck had to do the same.

Anthony Scott Wray died of massive head injuries after his motorcycle slammed into the back of Reed's trailer. The motorcycle skidded under the wheels of the trailer and was dragged for a short distance in a shower of sparks before it caught fire.

Reed said she initially had been unaware the collision had occurred and didn't stop until she saw the smoke from the burning motorcycle. That also may have been the case with the second trucker, who never stopped and has yet to be located.

There were suggestions early in the case that Wray may have been trying to ride his motorcycle between the two trucks.

Bodkin called 911 from her cellular telephone moments after the incident to complain about the trucker she said tried to run her off the road and then called the Highway Patrol when she arrived home and gave a taped interview. Had she gone to trial, one of the key witnesses would have been a man who had fixated on Bodkin because of her beauty.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker said the blonde woman had been the object of admiration by the witnesses who watched the progress of her black Lexus as it used the right shoulder of I-15 to pass two trucks. The man later told authorities that by peering between the trucks he saw the Lexus swerve and apply its brakes, the prosecutor said.