Hoa Nguyen, htnguyen
Westchester County police Sgt. Mario Guiliano was driving a county-owned vehicle when he's alleged to have drunkenly rear-ended a DOT truck on the Taconic State Parkway.
MOUNT PLEASANT – The off-duty Westchester County police sergeant charged with driving while intoxicated Wednesday had been working earlier in the day and was operating a county-owned car assigned to his unit when he rear-ended a truck, officials said.
Mario Guiliano, 46, of White Plains, a 23-year Westchester County police veteran, supervises the department's pistol licensing unit, Kieran O'Leary, public information officer for the county police, said.
Guiliano had worked a day shift at the unit on Wednesday before getting into the county-owned 2004 Chevrolet that he and other members of the unit had permission to take home, O'Leary said.
The spokesman said he did not know what time Guiliano's shift ended. The sergeant was driving on the Taconic State Parkway at 8:23 p.m. when he struck the truck owned by the state Department of Transportation in a construction zone, state police said.
Guiliano refused to take a field sobriety test and also refused to provide a sample for a preliminary breath screening, state police Trooper Melissa McMorris, that department's public information officer, said.
Guiliano was charged with DWI after the arresting trooper found a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and noticed slurred speech and watery, blood-shot eyes, McMorris said.
The police sergeant was issued traffic tickets for DWI and refusing to submit to a chemical test, which are to be returned to Mount Pleasant Town Court on Oct. 16. He remains on restricted desk duty, O'Leary said.
McMorris said that because Guiliano was taken to the hospital on a complaint of general pain, state police had not yet fingerprinted him or taken his mug shot. She anticipated he would make plans to turn himself in for processing.
Guiliano, who could not be reached for comment, started working for Westchester police in 1991 and last earned $118,693.
In recent months, multiple area police officers have been accused of drunk driving, including one fatally.
Richard Christopher, an Airmont resident and off-duty New York City police officer, collided with another vehicle on Interstate 287 on Aug. 12, killing himself and another driver. Christopher, who was driving the wrong way, had a blood-alcohol content of .21 percent, or more than double the legal limit of .08 percent, officials said.
In May, off-duty Port Chester Police Officer Jose A. Nieves was charged with drunk driving after a three-vehicle crash on I-287 in Harrison, police said. His blood-alcohol content was .13 percent, or more than 1.5 times the legal limit.
Smart Meter Opponent Who Was Arrested for Filming Cops Last Year Found Not Guilty
Liz Klimas
One of two mothers who were arrested last year in their protest against the forced installation of smart meters on their property was found not guilty by a jury this week.
Malia “Kim” Bendis was acquitted in DuPage County, Illinois, court of a misdemeanor for resisting or obstructing a police officer, the Chicago Tribune reported. At the time of the incident, Bendis was also charged with eavesdropping because she recorded a police officer, but the law that supported this charge was later ruled unconstitutional, according to the newspaper.
TheBlaze first reported the arrest of Bendis and fellow anti-smart meter activist Jennifer Stahl in January 2013. The Napperville, Illinois, women were part of a group that did not support the required replacement of their analog meters with wireless smart meters by the city.
Smart meters are controversial as some believe they could infringe on personal privacy or affect their health and safety.
The American Cancer Society has addressed concerns about smart meter radiofrequency waves, saying the are considered a “possible carcinogen.”
“Because RF radiation is a possible carcinogen, and smart meters give off RF radiation, it is possible that smart meters could increase cancer risk. Still, it isn’t clear what risk, if any there might be from living in a home with a smart meter,” the society’s website stated, adding that it would be “nearly impossible to conduct a study to prove or disprove a link between living in a house with smart meters and cancer because people have so many sources of exposure to RF and the level of exposure from this source is so small.”
Bendis was filming Stahl, who was arrested because she refused to allow smart meter installation, and was subsequently taken in herself when she refused to stop recording