Latzo Will Not Face Charges For Drunken-Driving

District Attorney says there's not enough evidence

LORENZI, CAR--Carova's lieutenant governor, Carson Latzo (NAT), will not face drunken-driving charges for an incident that occurred in September, the Lichmond County District Attorney said Friday.

The incident happened back on September 26th, when Latzo was pulled over by a Lichmond County Sheriff's Deputy in Townsend, just east of Lorenzi. Latzo had apparently been attending a dinner party earlier in the evening.

According to police records, Latzo was pulled over at around 1:00 AM on the morning of September 26th for speeding. The officer on scene smelled the presence of alcohol, and then administered a sobriety test, which the officer says, Latzo failed. But when the officer (who has not been named by department officials), learned the driver was the lieutenant governor, he did not arrest him. Instead, he called a superior officer, who instructed him to call a designated driver and not report the incident.

Latzo acknowledges he was pulled over, but disputes that he was drunk. He also insists he did not ask for special treatment from police, a story the officer also backs up.

Up until this week, it was unclear if Latzo would be charged with drunken-driving. However, on Friday, Lichmond County Prosecuting Attorney Beth Mandley told the media there is not enough evidence to file charges against Latzo, in part because the Lichmond County Sheriff's Office has lost results from the sobriety test that was conducted on Mr. Latzo.

"At this point, due to the inadvertent loss of Mr. Latzo's sobriety test results by the Sheriff's Department, we cannot continue with prosecution against Mr. Latzo, and we will not pursue charges," Mandley said.

Latzo's lawyer, Peter Cambria, told reporters Friday has was "not surprised" the District Attorney was not pressing charges because "there was never any evidence to begin with." The lieutenant governor himself did not respond to requests for comment.

The Lichmond County Sheriff's Department, however, says it is still looking into the incident. Department spokesman John Coriff says the department is conducting an investigation to determine if any ethics rules or laws were broken by the superior officer who allegedly ordered the subordinate officer to not report the incident.

"We take these allegations very seriously. If any of our superior officers ordered a subordinate to not report something or to keep quiet about it, that is a violation of department policy and state law, and it will not be tolerated," Coriff said.

The internal investigation is currently being handled by the Carova State Police, to avoid a conflict of interest within the agency.

Meanwhile, political leaders and every-day citizens are enraged Latzo avoided charges, and are equally upset about the jumbled handling of the case by the Lichmond County Sheriff's Department.

"How on earth is it that the lieutenant governor of our state is given special treatment for a serious offense, and then the sheriff's department is too imcompetent to hang on to the evidence?" State Representative Jim Cubins (C-Port Bay) told the Lorenzi Daily News. "Carson Latzo should be charged with drunken-driving, and the officers who let him off the hook should be fired, and the imcompetent police who lost the evidence should be fired."

Carova Governor Dan McCrae's press secretary, Allan Richardson, said the governor had no comment on the case but would be speaking about it later this week.