Tag: dui

New Jersey cop rushed to help Bob Menendez’s wife after Mercedes crash despite being retired and convinced patrolman on duty to let her go without a sobriety test or having to hand over her phone

A top New Jersey cop rushed to be by Bob Menendez’s wife’s side after she killed a man with her Mercedes in a 2018 crash, and quizzed the patrolmen on scene until she was allowed to walk away without a sobriety test or having to hand over her phone. 

Menendez’s wife Nadine Arslanian fatally struck 49-year-old Richard Koop in Bogota, New Jersey, on December 12, 2018. She was dating the New Jersey Democratic Senator at the time but they were not yet married. They are now both charged with felony bribery and corruption crimes. 

After the 2018 crash, Bogota Police rushed to the scene of the crash to quiz Arslanian. 

She told them Hoop had been jaywalking and put himself in the path of her car. 

Also there was Michael Mordaga, the former director of Hackensack Police and an ex-chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, according to The New York Post. 

Mordaga is the man who can be heard asking the patrolmen if they took a statement from Arslanian.

‘That’s my buddy’s wife who’s friends with her. 

He said could you do me a favor and take her up there because her friend just got in a car accident,’ he said, explaining why he’d shown up, before asking: ‘Are you guys getting a statement that you’re going to give to the prosecutor’s office?’ 

The cops let Arslanian walk away from the scene without a sobriety test or giving over her phone records. 

She was never charged, and was later gifted a new convertible Mercedes to replace the vehicle that was damaged in the crash. 

According to federal charging documents, about a month after the crash, Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman also indicted in the bribery scheme, lamenting her lack of a car.

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California cop who won award for ‘most DUI arrests’ is arrested for DUI

A Sacramento police officer arrested for driving under the influence had previously been given an award for arresting drunk drivers, KCRA 3 reported Wednesday.

Raymond Barrantes was arrested last weekend after California Highway Patrol pulled him over. He has since been bailed out of the San Joaquin County Jail.

According to the report, the West Sacramento Police Department confirmed that in 2015, Barrantes was given an award by the national organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), along with a Facebook post with the caption that Barrantes and another officer had “the most DUI arrests for our Agency in 2014.”

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New Law Mandates Interlocks on All New Cars, but Drunk Driving Tech Isn’t Ready Yet

Buried deep on Page 135 of a $1 trillion spending bill that mainly adds EV charging infrastructure is a small provision that could make a big deal for automakers. Passed last year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act asks that within three years, new cars would be equipped with drunk-driving deterrents automakers don’t yet know how to comply with. 

As reported by Automotive News, the technology to passively detect if drivers may be drunk could be years away, although efforts are underway to offer the tech as soon as 2026. 

“To be honest, I think it took everybody by surprise, not only in our company, but at all the OEMs and Tier 1’s that this legislation appeared,” Mike Franchy, North American director of supplier Asahi Kasei told Automotive News. 

His company is working on a detector like a breathalyzer to monitor the ethyl alcohol content in the driver’s breath. Similar to an interlock device already on the market, the system could be embedded in a door or steering column. Interlocks on cars have been around for several years and cost thousands to purchase or can be leased for $100 or more per month. Smaller breathalyzer systems are available and can cost as little as $50, although those are portable machines that can’t disable a car’s ignition. Researchers say they may have systems to detect blood-alcohol levels via touch soon, although it’s unclear when that could be available. 

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Head of Congressional Ethics Office Arrested, Charged with DUI After Crashing Car Into House

The guy who has been in charge of the congressional ethics office for the past 12 years is an alcoholic who crashed his car into someone’s house while driving under the influence.

Omar Ashmawy, the head of the Congressional Ethics Office, was arrested and charged with a DUI last month, according to an exclusive report by Yahoo News published on Thursday.

Ashmway was suspended after crashing into a stop sign, hitting a parked car and plowing into the front porch of a house while drunk.

The criminal complaint was filed in a Pike County, Pennsylvania court.

“I’ve had some medical issues including a diagnosis of syncope that I am dealing with in this case, but this incident was a wake-up call to me that I have a problem with alcohol dependency,” Ashmawy said in a statement to Yahoo News. “I’ve since sought out treatment for my use of alcohol, and I’m currently in a program where I am addressing this dependency. I’m grateful for the continued support of my family, friends and colleagues.”

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Infrastructure Bill to Require ‘Breathalyzer’-Style Systems in All Cars by 2026

Automakers will be required to install ‘breathalyzer’-style systems in all new cars starting in 2026 as part of the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.

The Transportation Department will be tasked with developing the new technology automakers will be forced to install on vehicles.

The system must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” according to the broadly-written legislation.

It may not entail blowing into a tube, but the system could involve something even more Orwellian: infrared cameras that track and monitor driver behavior.

“That technology is already being installed by automakers such as General Motors, BMW, and Nissan to track driver attentiveness while using partially automated driver-assist systems,” according to the AP. “The cameras make sure a driver is watching the road, and they look for signs of drowsiness, loss of consciousness, or impairment.”

Ostensibly, the “driver behavior” monitoring system could expanded later on for “carbon tax” enforcement, such as charging drivers who drive too fast, for example.

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Michigan Democrat state representative threatens police budget, vows to call ‘Gretchen’ during DUI arrest

Dashcam footage was released Sunday showing Michigan Democrat state Representative Jewell Jones resisting arrest after driving into a ditch on the side of a road while intoxicated.

The Michigan State Police dashcam footage shows the April 6, 2021 arrest Rep. Jones, 26, of Inkster after crashing his SUV into a ditch along I-96 near Fowlerville, the Post Millennial reported.

The officer repeatedly asks Jones for his ID and driver’s license, to which Jones replies, “Take your hand off me. I’ll give you my stuff, take your hand off me. I got you.”

“Can I get my phone first?” asks Jones. The officer replies no, and Jones then states that he would not provide his ID.

Police then proceed to take down Jones. According to WDIV 4, state police had to use a Taser twice as well as pepper spray to get him under control. “Stop resisting,” the officers can repeatedly be heard saying in the footage.

“I’m telling you if you do that, that’s not going to be good. It’s not going to be good for you. I’m telling you. I run yall’s budget bro,”Jones threatened officers while on the ground.

He repeatedly said once on the ground that he would cooperate if they took their hands off him, but continued to resist arrest. “I’m being abused by a f***ing police officer, I’m black… When I call Gretchen, I’ll need y’all IDs and badge numbers, everything,” Jones continued.

One clip of the Livingston County Police footage from WXYZ, Jones asks officers while in a police cruiser to call the Director of the Michigan State Police Col. Joseph Gasper. “Tell Joe who you got, and call f***ing Joe. I’m not sure he’s up or not. If he’s not up, wake him up. Tell Joe who you have, tell Joe who you have handcuffed.”

Jones reportedly had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 percent, more than twice the legal limit, and had a gun in his cup holder.

At one point, Jones asks deputies to take him to his home or to the Inkster Police Department, where he is an auxiliary officer, WXYZ reported.

“I can give you my address. You can drop me off at the crib,” he said. “You can drop me off at the station. I don’t give a (expletive), bro. You just let me know what you wanna do.”

Instead, Jones spent the night at the Livingston County Jail.

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Police officer, 24, ‘went to lockdown party then crashed while drink-driving home’

A young police officer is facing the sack after breaking lockdown rules to visit a house party before crashing into a home while drink-driving.

PC Tasia Stephens was heading home from the family gathering during the first lockdown when she drove her car into a house.

The 24-year-old former youth athlete was found to be double the limit when breathalysed by officers and was convicted of drink-driving at a magistrates’ court.

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H/T Poppy Burner

‘SICK TO MY STOMACH’

Joe Biden lied about my dad being drunk in crash that killed his wife and daughter… he’s got a nerve calling out Trump

Biden has made several public references to Curtis “allegedly” being drunk when his truck-trailer and another car collided, tragically killing the politician’s first wife Neilia, 30 and their one-year-old daughter, Naomi, in December 1972. The incident left Biden heartbroken.

The couple’s other children, Beau and Hunter Biden, aged four and three at the time, were also seriously injured but survived the crash.

“A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly – and I never pursued it – drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly and killed my daughter instantly and hospitalized my two sons,” Biden told a crowd in 2007.

In 2001, the week following the September 11 attacks, Biden delivered a speech at the University of Delaware to a crowd of more than 2,700.

He told them not to be afraid and that he felt for the people who had received a call saying their loved ones were dead, just like that, there in the morning, now gone forever, Politico reports.

Once, he said, he had gotten that call.

“It was an errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive and hit – a tractor-trailer – hit my children and my wife and killed them,” he said.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Jerome O. Herlihy, who oversaw the police investigation as chief prosecutor, said there was no evidence supporting Biden’s claim and Dunn was cleared of any wrongdoing.

“The rumor about alcohol being involved by either party, especially the truck driver (Dunn), is incorrect,” Herlihy said in 2008.

One of Dunn’s seven children, Pamela Dunn Hamill, previously told CBS that Biden called her the following year and “apologized for hurting my family in any way.”

“So we accepted that – and kind of end of story from there,” she said in 2009.

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