Chris Soules has been granted permission to travel ahead of a January trial date in his fatal car accident case, Us Weekly confirms.
The Iowa Judicial Branch tells Us that the Bachelor alum, 36, applied to modify the conditions of his pretrial release to allow him to travel from Iowa to Wannetka, Illinois, between December 15 and 26. His application was granted by the court on Wednesday, December 13. It is unclear why he plans to travel to Illinois, but it is possible he is spending Christmas with his sister who lives there.
Soules was arrested near Aurora, Iowa, on April 24 after his pickup truck rear-ended a tractor trailer driven by local farmer Kenneth Mosher. The 66-year-old was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.
The former Dancing With the Stars contestant pleaded not guilty in May to a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. In September, his attorneys asked the judge overseeing the trial to dismiss the charge, arguing that Soules fulfilled his legal requirements by calling 911 and waiting for paramedics to arrive to assist Mosher. The star’s request to remove his court-ordered ankle monitor was granted in November.
Soules has been rattled by the accident. “He’s still quite distressed by the whole matter,” his attorney Alfredo Parris told KCRG-TV in November. “Facing charges … [when] he tried to comply with everything that was necessary under the law, all that is a very distressful situation for any citizen.”
