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OMAHA — Former University of Nebraska Regent Elizabeth O’Connor changed course and pleaded guilty Friday to driving under the influence and causing serious bodily injury in a May 2025 crash.
O’Connor, 35, pleaded guilty to a Class IIIA felony following a May 21, 2025, crash in the Benson area of O’Connor’s former eastern Douglas County district. Authorities said the Omaha-area regent and former student regent tested with a blood alcohol content of 0.321% following the crash. That’s four times the legal limit.
Prosecutors said O’Connor crossed into incoming traffic around 8:30 p.m. A passenger in the opposing car sustained a broken back and pelvis, according to police reports.
A Class IIIA felony carries a sentence of up to three years in prison and 18 months post-release supervision.
O’Connor had initially pleaded not guilty. Pre-trial hearings had been delayed multiple times, and her attorney had been gathering evidence, signaling she might fight her charge.
The father of three young children who were injured in the crash, and whose mother-in-law was the one seriously injured, lobbied O’Connor to resign. He called on lawmakers and other officials to ramp up the pressure. State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of the Millard area had pledged to pursue impeachment if O’Connor didn’t resign, which had at least some bipartisan support.
O’Connor resigned Jan. 9. Kauth then withdrew her articles of impeachment, which would have required a majority of lawmakers and a supermajority of the Nebraska Supreme Court.
In her resignation letter, O’Connor said that while she would no longer be a regent, she looked forward to continuing to support NU and the “work of the great State of Nebraska.”
Omaha City Prosecutor Kevin Slimp led O’Connor’s case after the Douglas County Attorney’s Office, which typically handles felonies, conflicted out. Up until early August, O’Connor had been a deputy county attorney. She resigned from that post shortly after charges were filed July 30.
Gov. Jim Pillen, a former NU regent between 2013 and 2023, served alongside O’Connor for four years. Back in September, the same day Kauth told the Nebraska Examiner she would pursue impeachment, Pillen said that if O’Connor “knows the allegations against her to be true, I urge her to reflect on whether she should remain in a position of public trust.”
Pillen later appointed NU Regent Joel Makovicka, a physical therapist and former fullback for the Huskers, to serve through January 2027. There is a special election for the final four years of O’Connor’s six-year term this November. Makovicka is not running.
Susanne Shore, a community volunteer and former Nebraska first lady, and Justin Solomon, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Integrated Life Choices, advanced from Tuesday’s primary election for NU Regents District 4. Both are Democrats, like O’Connor.
The Nebraska Constitution bars felons from holding public office unless the Nebraska Board of Pardons has restored the person’s civil rights. O’Connor would have been forced to leave office had she still been on the board.
Douglas County District Judge Jeffrey Lux set O’Connor’s sentencing for 2:30 p.m. Aug. 17.
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