By Susan Weich
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — Dan McLaughlin, a newly elected county ambulance board member, is facing renewed pressure to give up his seat after officials learned of a third drunken driving charge against him.
Veteran board member Michael Garman said Wednesday he will call for McLaughlin’s resignation because of a guilty plea for impaired driving in Michigan in 1998.
Last week Garman said that McLaughlin’s guilty plea in 2002 for drunken driving and a pending DWI case from 2007 were an embarrassment to an agency that regularly preaches sober driving and deals with the aftermath of those who don’t heed the message.
“The third charge within a 10-year period — that’s just not setting the right example,” Garman said Wednesday.
Garman said he knows that legally, he can’t force McLaughlin from office, but he plans to ask for McLaughlin to step down at Wednesday’s board meeting.
McLaughlin, 36, a lawyer who lives in St. Peters, could not be reached for comment. His attorney on his current charge, Joel Eisenstein, said he was not aware of the Michigan case.
Eisenstein said information about McLaughlin’s most recent DWI charge was known during the election, but voters still elected him.
“Mr. McLaughlin’s opponents seem to carry a grudge,” he said.
In the 2007 case, McLaughlin was charged after being stopped on Highway 40 in O’Fallon, Mo. His blood-alcohol content was 0.167 percent, twice the legal threshold for drunken driving.
In the Michigan case, court records obtained by the Post-Dispatch show McLaughlin was charged with drunken driving in April 1998 in Meridian, outside of Lansing. McLaughlin’s license was suspended for 90 days after he pleaded guilty in July 1998 to a less serious charge of driving while impaired. The police report on his blood-alcohol level was not available Wednesday, but at the time of the arrest, Michigan’s legal limit for drunken driving was 0.10 percent.
In Missouri, a two-time offender who gets a third DWI could be charged with a felony. St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas said he did not know about the Michigan arrest earlier, although the prosecutor’s office does routinely check for additional charges in Missouri.
Because McLaughlin got a suspended sentence in his 2002 DWI in Chesterfield municipal court, Banas says he cannot increase McLaughlin’s pending charge to a felony. Felons cannot hold public office until they’ve completed their sentence.
After pleading guilty to misdemeanor DWI, McLaughlin completed one year of probation and the charge was removed from his public record.
The maximum sentence Banas likely would be able to seek in the current case would be six months in the county jail.
Banas expressed frustration with the more than 20 delays and four judge changes in the case, adding that “it was batted around like a football.”
Some of those delays and changes occurred because of a potential conflict with McLaughlin’s job as a lawyer, or because McLaughlin’s attorney asked for a different judge. The next hearing is set for Aug. 6.
On Wednesday, Michael Boland, a spokesman for the Gateway Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, reiterated his call for McLaughlin to step down. He also criticized delays in the case and suspended sentences in DWI cases.
“The legislators as well as the judges need to clean up some of these loopholes,” he said. “The only way that the American public becomes safe is that we adhere to the laws that are written, and obviously we don’t.”
McLaughlin was backed in the April election by several groups, including the International Association of Firefighters, Local 2665, which represents the paramedics in the St. Charles County Ambulance District. Another endorsement was given by the St. Charles County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Spokesmen for those groups could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Two other board members are divided on whether McLaughlin should continue to serve.
Vivian Kaesser said she wants to do whatever is best for the district. “I think he needs to resign, but according to state law he doesn’t have to,” she said.
Mark Fenton said that until he learns of a policy that would bar McLaughlin from the board, he would “look forward to his continued service.”
The other board members - Joan Peery and Matthew Simmons - could not be reached for comment.
Garman said he hadn’t discussed his plans with any of the board members, but he said McLaughlin’s arrests had shown a pattern of irresponsibility.
“That’s not what the St. Charles County Ambulance District is about,” he said.
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