A former Texas elected official who ran over and killed a father and son with her truck in 2017 will now spend 10 years behind bars after a jury mercifully slapped her with a decade of probation.
Dee Ann Haney, the former commissioner of Texas City, blew a golden opportunity to stay out of prison after she failed to stay sober and complete her court-ordered community service.
After getting busted for a DWI, Judge Jeth Jones told Haney, 61, that the jury gave her a second chance but that he would not be giving her a third.
The original crime occurred on the morning of July 3, 2017, when Haney was driving her Ford F-150 on the Galveston Causeway and side-swiped a Toyota Tacoma.
Van Duoc Le, 58, and his son Hong Phuc Le, 33, were standing outside the Tacoma and were killed on impact. They had been loading cargo into the bed.
Haney admitted to a Texas State Trooper that she had smoked marijuana hours earlier. Toxicology results also showed that she had a muscle relaxant and sleeping pill in her system the morning of the crash.
In February 2024, Haney was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and was given 10 years of probation, much to the chagrin of prosecutors and causing distress to the victims' families.
Seven months later, Haney was arrested while driving erratically through Texas City on September 27, 2024. She refused a breathalyzer test, but police noted that she had bloodshot eyes and was slurring her words.
Dee Ann Haney, the former commissioner of Texas City, is pictured in court on October 3, 2025, as her probation is revoked and she is re-sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Pictured: The scene of the crash on July 3, 2017, when Haney struck and killed Van Duoc Le, 58, and his son Hong Phuc Le, 33.
Haney told police she was following a Honda sedan driving recklessly, according to a police affidavit obtained by The Galveston County Daily News.
She then told police that she got out of her 2013 white Ford F-150 and was attacked by three people who had been inside the Honda sedan.
A witness contradicted her story, claiming Haney got out of her truck, walked over to a nearby park and began screaming and rolling around on the ground with no one else around.
She admitted to having a beer and a shot about three hours earlier, police said.
Prosecutors immediately filed a motion with the court to revoke her probation, and after several months of legal back and forth, that was granted by Judge Jones on October 3. That day, she began serving her ten year prison sentence.
'Everybody here knows that the jury gave you probation,' Judge Jones said. 'They gave you a second chance and you didn't even get through 10 percent [of your sentence] before violating it.'
'It seems like you did not take any of this seriously,' he added.
Court documents also indicated that Haney did not complete the minimum 16 community service hours per month she needed to do to reach a total of 600 hours before the end of her probation.
Judge Jeth Jones cited Haney's DWI and failure to complete her community service as reasons why he was sending her to prison.
Galveston County Chief Assistant Criminal District Attorney Kacey Launius told KTRK that what the court had asked of her was not difficult.
'The jury really did give her a second chance at being able to live out in the community while she served her sentence and that was her opportunity to take responsibility for her actions and live as a good citizen,' Launius said.
'She wasn't successful at completing the technical obligations of her probation. Completing community service hours is such an easy thing to do, and she simply was not doing that,' she added.
Haney will still have to complete her community service obligations after her 10-year prison sentence.