Dad pleads guilty after using daughter, 9, as designated driver

By Kristina Sgueglia, CNN

December 20, 2011 -- Updated 0507 GMT (1307 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Shawn Weimer wants to "put this whole thing behind him," his attorney says
• Weimer was arrested in October; police say he appeared to have been drinking
• The 9-year-old was using a booster seat to drive the van, police say

(CNN) -- A father who used his 9-year-old daughter as a designated driver in a Detroit suburb pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree child abuse and allowing an unlicensed minor to operate a motor vehicle, authorities said.
Shawn Weimer wants to "put this whole thing behind him," said his attorney, David Steingold.
The girl was using a booster seat on the driver's side of a red van when police stopped the vehicle in the early-morning hours of October 8.
"What did you stop me for?" she asked officers, according to police. "I was driving good."
Weimer appeared to have been drinking, said Brownstown, Michigan, police Detective Lt. Robert Grant at the time.
Michigan cops got wind of the young driver from an anonymous male caller.
"She's driving pretty good," the male caller told a dispatcher in a recorded conversation provided to CNN in October. The girl was even using her turn signals correctly, he said.
Surveillance tape from a Detroit-area gas station about 3 a.m. showed Weimer telling a store clerk that he had been drinking.
"I've got a designated driver," Weimer said on the tape. "Listen, we're leaving and she's driving."
Weimer refused a breathalyzer test at the time of his arrest.
Judge Margie Braxton ordered Weimer to wear an alcohol monitor until his sentencing, set for February 23, said prosecutor Maria Miller.
Steingold told CNN Weimer is "working hard to get all his visitation rights with his child and that's his only focus at this point."
He said his client pleaded guilty to spare his daughter from having to testify against him at trial.

CNN's Kendall Green contributed to this report.