A former bridge tender who was arrested in 2022 after lifting the Royal Park Bridge while a bicyclist was still on it, causing her to fall 60 feet to her death , has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after violating the terms of her probation.
Artissua Paulk, 46, of Greenacres, had been working as a bridge tender for Florida Drawbridge Inc., which manages the bridge, for about a year when on the afternoon of Feb. 6, 2022, she lifted the drawbridge for a boat while Carol Wright, 79, a retired Palm Beach County journalist, was walking across with her bike.
Paulk did not inspect the bridge, as she was required to do three times before lifting it, a probable cause affidavit for her arrest said. She and her supervisor, who had told Paulk in a text message to tell police that she had inspected the bridge, were both fired by the next month…