DUI charges against Rep. Enrique Sanchez dropped after guilty plea. What to know.
PROVIDENCE – The state has dismissed a driving-under-the- influence charge against state Rep. Enrique Sanchez just days after the second-term Providence lawmaker pleaded guilty to refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
Court records indicate that state prosecutors dismissed the DUI charge Monday.
On Friday, Sanchez pleaded guilty to refusing to take a breathalyzer test after being stopped for suspected drunken driving early Feb. 3 in Cranston.
Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal Magistrate William T. Noonan ordered the 28-year-old Democrat to undergo alcohol treatment and perform 10 hours of community service, court records indicate. He must keep the interlock system on his car for six months.
He was due to appear before Superior Court Magistrate Patrick Burke Friday on the DUI charge, but the matter has now been closed. Often people charged with driving under the influence agree to plead to refusal – a civil charge – in the traffic tribunal and a DUI count is dismissed.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office could not be reached immediately for comment Tuesday, but previously told The Journal that the state assumed prosecution of the case when it was transferred to Superior Court.
According to the Cranston police report, an officer spotted Sanchez around 2:59 a.m. when the Nissan he was driving stopped at a red light at Reservoir Avenue and failed to move when the signal turned green.
An officer approached the car and reported that Sanchez appeared 'confused." The officer wrote in the report that Sanchez "tried to hand me a red debit card" when asked for identification.
Authorities said Sanchez told the officer he was coming from a friend's house in Central Falls and was on his way home to Providence. The officer told him he was going the wrong way and asked if he knew where he was. He said he missed the highway.
After arriving at the police station, the report says, "he freely admitted that he takes medication, and it affects his mental health and his driving. He also admitted that he did drink and circled back to taking medications again."
Sanchez broke his silence on his arrest on X a week after his arrest, but did not apologize for his actions. He reaffirmed his commitment to "representing the people who placed their trust in me to be their voice when they elected me."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Enrique Sanchez's criminal DUI charge dropped. Here's why.
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