Nancy Rollins
February 1, 2008Grand Isle voters to elect mayor
February 6, 2008
State police arrested former State Rep. Carla Dartez, 42, for driving while intoxicated last Monday around 10 a.m. in Bayou Blue. If convicted, the DWI offense would be her second.
Dartez, a resident of Morgan City, was stopped on U.S. 90 near the Louisiana Highway 316 exit. She was also charged with improper lane use.
Dartez was given a breath test, which she passed – blowing .037. The legal limit is .08. However, Troop C spokesman Gilbert Dardar said the arresting trooper suspected Dartez was under the influence of drugs other than alcohol.
“She was asked to give a urine sample for analysis, but she refused,” Dardar said.
Refusing the additional test resulted in an automatic DWI charge, the state police spokesman said. Dartez was transported to the Terrebonne Parish Jail, where she posted a $1,000 bond for the DWI and improper lane use charges the same day, according to Capt. Malcolm Wolfe of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“Any time we make an arrest and someone blows below the legal limit and we, as the arresting officers, feel that the person was more impaired than what the breath test showed, then we ask that person to submit a blood or urine sample for further analysis,” Dardar said.
Dartez, who did not respond to a request for comment last week, was convicted of DWI in 1998. She was also charged with driving without headlights, improper lane use and speeding during the same incident.
Last September, Dartez failed a field sobriety test and was cited for improper lane use and hitting a 24-year-old pedestrian. The woman she struck suffered a broken arm.
Dartez lost her bid for re-election to the state House of Representatives last October. The Democratic front-runner was criticized by Jerome Boykin, president of Terrebonne Parish’s branch of the National Association for the Advance-ment of Colored People, after she reportedly signed off on a telephone conversation with his mother with the words, “Otay, Buckwheat.”
