A former Johnson County elected official who is also an attorney was arrested on a charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated after a car accident that injured a pregnant woman.
Richard J. McConnell, 59, 2069 W. County Road 300S, Franklin, was arrested on a charge of operating while intoxicated after the car accident in Franklin last week. Operating while intoxicated is a Class C misdemeanor.
McConnell, who is a long-time attorney and partner at Bose McKinney and Evans law firm in Indianapolis, declined to comment on the incident. McConnell was a county commissioner from 2005 until his resignation in 2007. He was a member of the county council for about two years before he was elected as a commissioner.
He was arrested at the scene of the accident. The prosecutor’s office will wait on the blood toxicology test before deciding whether to file a charge against McConnell, and those results could take months, as the state department that performs the tests is backlogged six months to a year, Prosecutor Joe Villanueva said.
Franklin police were called to an accident at 6:06 p.m. Sept. 13 at the intersection of South Morton and Nineveh streets.
McConnell told police that he was driving west on Nineveh Street and thought the light in his traffic direction had turned green, according to a report from the Franklin Police Department.
He told police he was distracted by sunlight and was trying to take off his glasses and replace them with sunglasses, which is why he thought the light had turned green. He drove into the intersection and hit a vehicle, according to the report.
The other driver, Amanda R. Drawe, 27, Franklin is pregnant, and had pain in her wrists and stomach. Medics were called to assist Drawe, but she was not transported to the hospital. A witness who arrived after the crash told police he thought McConnell may have been drinking and that he saw McConnell rinse with mouthwash, the report said.
McConnell told police that he had one cocktail at a Franklin restaurant earlier in the evening. An officer could smell the odor of alcohol and McConnell blew a 0.03 percent on a portable breath test. In Indiana, 0.08 percent is the legal limit to be considered too intoxicated to drive.
Officers said he failed several parts of multiple field sobriety tests at the scene of the accident. McConnell told the officer that he had vertigo, but was not on medication for it, and that he has poor balance, the report said.
He was arrested and taken to Johnson Memorial Hospital for a blood draw. He was released on $250 bond within hours of his arrest.
The witness reporting McConnell using mouthwash and his performance on the field sobriety tests prompted police to make an arrest and get a blood draw, despite the results of McConnell’s portable breathe test being under the legal limit to drive, Franklin Police Chief Kirby Cochran said.
“We would always go for a blood draw out of fairness to everyone,” he said.
McConnell is listed as a lawyer in good standing with the Indiana Bar Association. Any attorney who is found guilty of a misdemeanor must report the conviction to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission’s executive director, and disciplinary action regarding the attorney’s license to practice law could be considered by the state.
