POLICE CRASH DUMMY
Lieutenant’s 2nd DWI-collision bust
An off-duty NYPD lieutenant was arrested for drunken driving for a second time after he crashed into a parked car in Brooklyn over the weekend.
Lt. Donald Stewart, 43, a 22-year veteran of the force, was taken into custody at the 81st Precinct at around 4:53 a.m. Saturday and charged with driving while impaired by alcohol, police said.
He has been suspended without pay, an NYPD spokesperson said Sunday.
Officials declined to say where the crash happened, but the NYPD’s 81st Precinct covers Stuyvesant Heights and parts of Crown Heights.
Stewart, a retired gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserves, was previously arrested in 2014 after an investigation concluded he drove while “under the influence of an intoxicant” when he crashed into another parked car in Brooklyn.
According to police records, the first incident occurred April 18, 2014, and Stewart was stopped by fellow officer James Nielson in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The police probe found that Stewart refused to take a breathalyzer test and “consumed an intoxicant to the extent that said officer was unfit for duty.”
Nielson testified that he didn’t think the then-sergeant was legally drunk.
A close call
He did, however, admit that he had a tough time deciding if Stewart was actually sober or not, but maintained that he did not show favoritism to his fellow officer.
“If he wasn’t a cop, I would have said that he was not above the legal limit,” Nielson told prosecutors, according to court papers.
Stewart was ultimately acquitted of the 2014 DWI charge, but was convicted of a traffic violation for leaving the scene of an accident.
Following the 2014 incident, Stewart was suspended for 64 days and put on probation for a year.
By 2018, Stewart rose in the ranks and currently serves as the 100th Precinct’s special operations lieutenant. Records show his salary was $212,000 last year.
A representative of Stewart could not be reached for comment.