A federal judge has ruled that Evan Knoll is mentally competent to stand trial on a host of charges that could land him in prison for more than 50 years. The ruling came just hours ago in the Grand Rapids, Michigan court room where one of the darkest chapters in modern drag racing may be unfolding. Last week psychologist David Szyhowski gave his findings in court and intimated that Knoll had not been straight forward during mental testing and tested so poorly his results were on the level of someone with mental retardation.
Both Knoll and his lawyer agreed that Knoll was able to assist in his own defense and understood the charges against him.
Another bad sign for Knoll is the US Attorney Michael McDonald, who already rolled out one superseding indictment in the case, ramping the charges up a couple of weeks ago said that they government will introduce a second superseding indictment in the coming days, meaning that the Feds have another group of charges they would like to add to the list.
As we have said multiple times, depending on how hard Knoll plans to fight this case, people in the highest levels of drag racing in both active racing and administrative rolls, including track operators, and even media members could be hauled into court as witnesses for either side of this case.
The truly disasterous thing for the sport would be if the IRS decides to chase the money Knoll gave to teams in the form of sponsor agreements. If that happens, scores of racers and owners could be placed into real financial peril or in the case of smaller organizations, ruin. We have spoken to several sources familiar with both the IRS and their track record in these cases and to a person they have stated the chances of that happening at this point are hovering around 50/50.
Stay tuned because the first shoe just dropped. Who knows what’s coming next.
Knoll Ruled Competent for Trial
