A Union County resident was recently arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of illegal drugs following a Denville, NJ, traffic stop. According to reports the driver apparently left the scene after being stopped by Denville police. He then proceeded toward Roxbury where local police say the man crashed his vehicle trying to avoid capture.
Being a drunk driving defense attorney practicing in Morris, Union and other counties throughout New Jersey, I know that any attempt to evade or lead police on a chase will only make things worse once they catch up with the suspect. Indeed, it is a rare drunk driver who can out-think or out-drive any of the Garden State’s law enforcement professionals. Better to accept your situation rather than make things worse than they already are.
In this particular case, the driver ended up crashing his GMC Envoy in the municipality of Roxbury and he still was arrested for DWI and drug possession. According to news articles, the incident started with Denville authorities attempted to pull over 36-year-old Manuel Mosquera around 3pm on February 12. The man apparently tried to evade the Denville officers before they could get him to stop his vehicle.
Roxbury Patrolmen Richard Ricco and Mike Fournier, who were in the vicinity, heard the Denville alert regarding the fleeing driver. Soon after, the officers spotted Mosquera’s sport utility vehicle driving along Route 10 near Hillside Avenue. Police reports indicate that the vehicle had a broken brake light and was drifting onto the roadside shoulder.
The Roxbury patrolmen pursued the suspect off of Route 10 and onto Commerce Boulevard where it reportedly struck two vehicles that were waiting to make a left turn on to Commerce. The suspect then continued across the street, jumped the curb, continued into a wooded area and eventually hit a tree.
Police arrested Mosquera, who admitted to drinking rum and injecting cocaine. Officers later found a hypodermic syringe on the floor of the vehicle on the driver’s side. The man was charged with eluding police, being under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of a syringe and drug paraphernalia, having an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle, possession of CDS in a motor vehicle, failure to yield, failure to signal, driving while under the influence, reckless driving, consumption of an alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle, lamp maintenance and failure to maintain a lane.
Cops: Driver fleeing police was drunk, high on cocaine before Roxbury crash, MyCentralJersey.com, February 16, 2010