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‘High functioning’ 4X DWI defendant faces trial in March

Justin Cody Moore

A 33-year-old tree company owner who faces four DWI charges in two counties told a state trooper that he “could drink all day and never feel it,” boasted that he had once consumed “five times the limit and never felt anything” and declared that as a “very high functioning” alcoholic he was fine to drive on the afternoon when he T-boned an SUV carrying a family of four, court records said.

Justin Cody Moore faces charges for alleged drunken driving on four different occasions — three of them involving a car crash. District Court Judge Abe Hudson on Dec. 13 revoked Moore’s $10,000 bond and at the request of prosecutors ordered him to post a $50,000 cash bond while awaiting trial. (Although the bond Hudson set was lower than the $200,000 amount prosecutors requested, the $50,000 bond was higher than many DWI bonds in the district.)

After the Dec. 13 hearing, Hudson ordered Moore to continue to wear a continuous alcohol monitoring (CAM) bracelet.

“The defendant has an alcohol abuse disorder which is beyond his control as evidenced by his statements” to law officers and his four DWI arrests, three of which had occurred in the past 60 days, the judge’s order said.

After his last crash resulting in a drunken driving charge, on Kanuga Road at Price Road on Dec. 6, Moore told a trooper he believed “he should have been driving with a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) of .17 when he struck a motor vehicle containing four passengers, one of which was a 2-year-old child.”

In other pending cases:

  • On Dec. 10, 2023, in Polk County, Moore was charged with driving while impaired and communicating a threat against a Polk County sheriff’s deputy. He registered a .21 BAC in a breath test.
  • On the afternoon of Oct. 24, 2024, he was allegedly driving 20 mph over the speed limit on U.S. 64 in Horse Shoe when he “failed to navigate a turn, overcorrected and rolled his vehicle,” the judge’s order said. Moore was “ejected from said vehicle and (was) almost crushed to death” in the crash.
  • Ten days later, on Nov. 3, Moore allegedly registered a .18 BAC reading after he rear-ended a car stopped at a red light on N.C. 108 in Columbus. He was charged with driving while impaired, failure to reduce speed and reckless driving. The breath test reading was .18.

All four DWI cases are pending in Polk and Henderson counties. After a hearing on Monday in District Court, Moore was scheduled to appear in court on the two Henderson County cases on March 13.

In arrest records, Moore has reported home addresses in Landrum, S.C., Upward Road in Hendersonville and, most recently, at the home of a girlfriend in Brevard.

In his order last month, Judge Hudson said a $50,000 cash bond should pose no burden on Moore, “a business owner in the community who, by his own admission via counsel, made tens of thousands of dollars this past month.”