Former Springfield city councilor pleads guilty in ‘road rage’ case 

Former Springfield City Councilor Victoria Doyle pleaded guilty Monday, Nov. 17, to unlawful use of a weapon, in connection with a “road rage” confrontation in which she displayed a gun.

Lane County Circuit Judge Jay McAlpin sentenced Doyle, 56, to three years of supervised probation for the felony conviction and 14 days in jail. She is also not to possess firearms.

He denied a request to enter the conviction as a Class A misdemeanor after Doyle and attorney Hubert Duvall Jr. submitted evidence that a change in medical treatments resulted in dramatic changes to her behavior.

McAlpin, citing evidence about the medication and also a concern expressed by Doyle about possibly losing her job with the city of Eugene, told Doyle that halfway through the supervised probation period, “then you can apply to have the felony treated as a misdemeanor.”

Duvall had earlier told McAlpin that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt “her actions were a reaction to her medication,” but the evidence “certainly weighs that way.”

A pharmacist’s written statement submitted to the court said that 44 days before the confrontation Doyle discontinued an external steroid treatment, Cortef, and also a hormone treatment, progesterone.

The changes “could have resulted in a distinct hormonal imbalance and consequential mood dysregulation,” Brady McNulty, a Roseburg pharmacy manager, said in a statement that also noted that the combination of other medications taken by Doyle at the time — bupropion, phentermine, testosterone and DHEA — could “make mood swings, irritability, clouded judgment, and instability possible.”

Doyle had resigned from the City Council just over a week before a parking dispute Aug. 16 at a Walmart on Olympic Street in Springfield.

Doyle followed a vehicle and, while driving, displayed her weapon before the vehicles reached a dead end at the 1700 block of 16th Street.

Emily Stull, prosecutor on the case, said in court Monday that the people followed by Doyle reported that after stopping and telling her they were calling police, she said to “tell them that city councilperson Doyle is here, call them and tell them.”

Stull also said Doyle initially denied to police that she had ever displayed her weapon, but changed her story after being told by officers there was footage of the encounter.

Statements submitted to the court by Doyle show that each of the four people in the vehicle she had followed stated that they had been paid $1,400 for “full satisfaction” and did not desire to see Doyle prosecuted.

“I want to tell you how deeply sorry I am,” Doyle told McAlpin before he handed down the sentence. “It breaks my heart that I made people feel afraid,” she said.

About her initial statements to police, Doyle told the court, “I’m really ashamed I wasn’t truthful with the police officers.”

Statements of support

Ten people showed up in court to support Doyle, and others — including Lane County Commissioner David Loveall — submitted letters in support of her character.

Joe Pishioneri, a longtime Springfield city councilor who retired last December, wrote that Doyle has a “huge heart and love for everyone around her.” After trees fell on his family home in 2024 ice storm, Doyle and her husband, Mark, allowed the Pishioneris to stay with them for over a month, Pishioneri wrote.

Loveall, in his letter, said she and Doyle shared a Christian faith, and he praised her as serving on the Springfield City Council “with direct passion, great humility and a peaceable workable spirit.” Several friends wrote to say they had never seen Doyle act violently or aggressively.

Nick Larsen, owner-operator of Oregon Amateur Basketball, said in a written letter that Doyle has worked with the youth sports league on the “front desk,” where she’s been “on the ‘front lines’ when it comes to parent complaints.”

Doyle “deals with angry youth sports parents and habitually de-escalates situations instead of escalating them.”

In his letter, Doyle’s husband, Mark Doyle, stated that in the weeks preceding the roadway confrontation, there were “several times that she seemed to react irrationally to little disagreements we would have and that just wasn’t like her at all.”

Duvall told the court Doyle has greatly reduced the number of medications and also enrolled in counseling. Doyle has been employed with the city of Eugene since 2014 and works as a senior engineering permit technician in the city’s Public Works department, according to court documents.

McAlpin, before announcing the sentence, said that when people come before him with similar cases, “they almost always leave with felony convictions.”

The judge said there was “a great deal of evidence” about how the change in medications “can cause behavior that is out of the ordinary,” and that he also considered how Doyle might lose her job with a felony conviction.

But, in declining to treat the case as a misdemeanor, McAlpin cited “the potential consequences if it had gone one step further,” referring to the confrontation.

Stull, in court, spoke about the “abuse of perceived power” by Doyle, especially considering the “young individuals” in the car she followed.

Doyle declined comment after the sentencing hearing.

In a phone interview, Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa said the four people in the car followed by Doyle were all between the ages of 18 and 21.

“Friends [of Doyle], city officials contacted me to talk on her behalf. They say she’s otherwise a very lovely person, and I don’t have any reason to doubt that,” Parosa said. “But this is a really dangerous decision she made out of anger. Whether you are a public official or any other person on the street, we cannot have that or tolerate that.”