Mississippi Mayor Guilty of DUI

Last December, the Mayor of Raleigh apparently had a little whiskey before he got behind the wheel of his car– okay, a lot – and he and was arrested for careless driving. Recently he was found guilty of DUI and ordered to pay more than $1,800 and sentenced to two days in jail. The story is here.

The arrest back in December was carried out by former Police Chief David Stringer. The interesting thing is that Stringer was fired in January. What’s that all about?



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Oklahoma Mayor Arrested: Painkillers

Prescription painkillers have numbed another elected official. Frankie Arnold is the mayor of Newkirk, Oklahoma. Last week he was arrested and charged with improperly getting prescriptions of Hydrocodone from two different doctors and from online. The story is here. Arnold, who is 51, is also a professor at Cowley County Community College.



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Where the Heck is Eufaula?

Do you know where Eufaula is? Neither did I, so here’s a map.

Ya, so? Nothing really, just that the Mayor of Eufaula, Robert Dean Smith was recently arrested for allegedly violating his probation stemming from his 2008 DUI. At that time he pled guilty to DUI, having an open booze container in his car and for a traffic violation.

The story is here and here among other places.

The Mayor is also accused of using a city credit card to buy gasoline – felony embezzlement – unrelated to his drinking problem. Or is it?

Local Texas Politician Resigns Over Drug Scandal

California has its corrupt town of Bell (though certainly there are more), and Texas has its own gem of a town in Socorro.

The El Paso Times has numerous excellent articles detailing the problems facing Socorro due to the conduct (or misconduct) of its elected officials. This particular article is of interest to us at the Drunk Politician Blog.

Given that Socorro is a southern border town, what type of criminal activity do you think might be occurring there? Well, one Socorro City Councilman, Luis Varela, recently resigned from office due to his alleged involvement with - you guessed it – illegal drugs.

Varela is accused of selling weed and cocaine. He was arrested in November, allegedly with 27.5 grams of cocaine and around 44 pounds of marijuana. Hey, we know times are tough, but is it that bad that politicians have to turn into major illegal drug suppliers? Or are voters that clueless that we have to elect drug pushers?

Varela has an interesting record. Read more here. Was he a Democrat or a Republican? Actually we here at the Drunk Politician Blog and Substance Abuse CLE don’t know and we don’t care. If you are interested, it should be easy enough to find out by reading the El Paso Times articles, but it doesn’t matter to us. When it comes to problems with drugs and alcohol (using or selling) we have learned that no one political party has a monopoly.

Question authority.

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Pennsylvania State Representative Busted For Smoking Weed

Pleads Guilty to Reduced Charge!

Should marijuana be legalized? One politician might argue yes. Pennsylvania State Representative Paul Costa was arrested after a police officer observed the politician sharing a joint at a Pittsburgh Steeler tailgate party on October 3rd. The full story by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is here.

On November 24, 2010, Costa pled guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct and was fined $50. That story is here from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Costa is a member of House committees on commerce, liquor control, tourism and recreational development, and transportation. His brother is a state senator and his cousin is a former police chief of Pittsburgh and now serves as a state representative.

Costa happens to be a Democrat. But we must point out that the abuse of substances is conducted by members of each political party.

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Mayor in South Carolina Tried to Sell Drugs

Hypothetically, what would happen to you if you were the Mayor of a town in South Carolina and decided to get involved in drugs and tried to kill someone. Well the answer is that you would not be Mayor for very long after that. Just ask Randolph Gurley. He was the Mayor Pro-Tem of Dillon, South Carolina.

The story is here.

Earlier this year Gurley got into an argument with a man. Apparently, Gurley took exception to the words that were spoken and he tried to run over the other man with his car – according to state police. Before that, Gurley is accused of trying to sell cocaine. My goodness, you would think the Mayor of a town would have better things to do. I mean remember Mayberry RFD? They never had problems like that. Or how about Green Acres? The biggest problem Mr. Douglas had was keeping his suit clean while shoveling cow manure. In modern times, the Mayor of small towns try to kill people and sell cocaine and weed.

Well, the Governor of South Carolina had enough. Governor Mark Sanford suspended Gurley until the charges against him can be resolved one way or another.

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City Attorney in California Busted for DUI

In between his gig of providing legal advice to the California cities of Chino and Rialto, City Attorney Jimmy Gutierrez managed to get arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. Last month, Gutierrez must have had too much wine and stayed out too late on a Friday night. He was arrested by California Highway Patrol just before 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

The story is here from the Redland Daily Facts.

CHP officers noticed Gutierrez swerving on the freeway (that’s state highway for you East Coast readers) and stopped him. Gutierrez refused a field sobriety test but asked to provide a blood sample instead. He was taken into custody and released at 1:00 p.m. that afternoon.

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