WASHINGTON — Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar’s wife got a 30-day suspended sentence, was fined $250 and faces driving restrictions for a year after pleading guilty to a November drunken-driving incident. A charge of hitting a parked car and leaving the scene was dropped Friday, according to Fairfax County court records. Charlene Lugar, 77, was arrested Nov. 18 after hitting a parked car in the suburban Virginia neighborhood where the Lugars live. An officer stopped Lugar after noticing damage to the front of her 2003 Buick Rendezvous and smoke coming from the engine. No one was injured.
A breath test taken about three hours after she was stopped registered a score of 0.11 percent alcohol content. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.Fairfax County police spokesman Bud Walker said three hours is not an unusual amount of time between a stop and when a breath test is administered.
Walker said a person’s score could go up or down in three hours, depending on various factors including how recently alcohol had been ingested before the arrest.Lugar would have faced automatic jail time if her reading had been 0.15 percent or higher. Instead, she received a suspended sentence and a $250 fine. She can use her driver’s license for limited purposes for a year, including to attend a mandated alcohol education program and to go to Unity Club of Falls Church, a meeting place for members of Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery groups. A hearing had been scheduled for June 11, but Lugar entered a guilty plea last week to a charge of driving while intoxicated. At the time of Charlene Lugar’s arrest, Sen. Lugar issued a statement saying the family was “deeply sorry and embarrassed that this accident has occurred.”
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