Don Dwyer DUI: Maryland Lawmaker With Drunken Boating Past Charged With Driving While Intoxicated

GOP Lawmaker Who Partly Blamed Drunken Boating On Gay Marriage Law Charged With New DUI

Maryland state Rep. Don Dwyer (R), who recently pleaded guilty to drunken boating in a 27-foot power boat called "The Legislator," was charged with driving a car while intoxicated on Tuesday morning.

Anne Arundel County Police say Dwyer was stopped on Route 100 eastbound at Edwin Raynor Road, at around 12:45 this morning.

Police say Dwyer had been driving erratically. He appeared glassy eyed and his speech was slurred.

Dwyer failed three field sobriety tests, according to the police report.

According to CBS Baltimore, Dwyer identified himself as a Maryland representative to the police and said he had consumed two beers at a tavern in Baltimore.

In a January interview with the Capital Gazette, the Anne Arundel County lawmaker attributed his August 2012 drunken boating to the dissolution of his own marriage and to feeling "betrayed" by colleagues' support of Maryland's gay marriage legislation. The crash injured seven, including a 5-year-old girl whose skull was fractured.

"I felt a tremendous amount of pressure in my family," he told the paper. "You take those personal issues [and] add betrayal on the professional side, and it really gets to be overwhelming."

Dwyer has a sentencing hearing for the drunken boating scheduled for Oct. 25.

Dwyer, who was first elected to the House of Delegates in 2002, raffled off two assault rifles to support his 2014 reelection efforts this past spring.

Before You Go

"Young L.A. Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two" ― L.A.'s Daily News

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