Police have charged a 26-year-old man with driving while impaired and driving while intoxicated after he allegedly drove in the wrong direction in Richmond County during the early morning hours of June 11. The New Jersey resident is scheduled to appear in court to answer the charges on Aug. 11. His vehicle was stopped by Port Authority Police on the West Shore Expressway in Staten Island near the newly opened Goethals Bridge at approximately 4:00 a.m.
A Port Authority Police sergeant says that he initially saw the man’s 2013 Dodge Durango SUV proceeding eastbound in the westbound lanes of Goethals Road North. According to reports, the SUV then passed through traffic cones and headed eastbound on the westbound lanes of the Staten Island Expressway in an area that had been closed to traffic due to ongoing construction work. Police decided to pull the man’s SUV over in the vicinity of the West Shore Expressway off-ramp.
Police claim that the man seemed disorientated and unsteady on his feet when he exited his vehicle, and they also say that they detected the odor of alcohol on his breath. He was taken into custody after allegedly performing poorly during a standardized field sobriety test. Reports do not indicate what the man’s blood alcohol level may have been at the time of the incident, but they do suggest that he refused to submit to a breath test at the scene.
When presented with facts like these, experienced criminal defense attorneys may seek to resolve matters quickly by negotiating a plea agreement with prosecutors. While motorists convicted of drunk driving in New York may face decades in prison when lives have been lost, prosecutors may be willing to reduce DWI charges when defendants were not involved in an accident and posed little or no threat to the general public.
