A plea agreement is on the table for Walter Cunningham, the 72-year-old Hartland school bus driver accused of taking kids on a chaotic ride and putting them out on the side of the road. Under the deal, Cunningham would enter an Alford no-contest plea to an operating-while-intoxicated charge, while 28 felony counts of recklessly endangering safety, tied to each child on the bus, would be dropped. Prosecutors plan to recommend 60 days in jail, while the defense is pushing for a $350 fine and a 12-month revocation of his driver’s license.
Plea terms and defense assertions
Defense attorney Anthony Cotton told the court in a letter that the Alford plea is being offered even though, in his view, there is “strong support for innocence” in a pharmacological report. He wrote that Cunningham had no alcohol in his system, but did have prescribed antidepressant medication and Mucinex DM in his system. Cotton argued that “the children were never put in harms way with Walter driving the bus that day,” and urged the judge to impose the minimum penalties allowed. As reported by TMJ4.
How the ride unfolded
The case traces back to Jan. 27, 2025, when a student on the bus called 911, telling dispatchers the driver would not let students off and was acting erratically, according to court records. Parents rushed to the area and one pulled a vehicle in front of the bus so children could get out. Officers later reported seeing kids running in the road and said the driver showed signs of impairment and admitted to taking multiple medications. He was arrested, and the Waukesha County District Attorney’s Office later charged him with 28 counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and one operating-while-intoxicated count. As reported by WTMJ.
Bus company and district response
Dousman Transport Company operates the route for the Hartland-Lakeside School District. The company said onboard camera footage and GPS data showed the driver missed multiple stops and veered off the assigned route. Dousman has suspended Cunningham and says it is cooperating with investigators, while the district has said it is providing support to affected students and families. Those details surfaced in local coverage of the arrest and investigation. As reported by FOX6.
What comes next and legal context
A date for the plea hearing has not yet been scheduled, according to court filings and coverage of the case. An Alford plea is a type of guilty plea in which a defendant maintains innocence but acknowledges that prosecutors likely have enough evidence to secure a conviction, and courts treat it as a guilty plea when it comes to sentencing. For context, the original charging documents noted that Cunningham’s dozens of felony counts could have added up to a potential penalty of decades in prison if he had been convicted as charged. The legal framework for an Alford plea is outlined by LII / Cornell Law, and details of the charging exposure were reported earlier by WTMJ.
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