An NYPD officer was indicted Thursday for drunken driving while on duty in the Bronx, according to the Bronx district attorney’s office.
Richard Evans, 44, was indicted on charges of official misconduct and four counts of operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
Evans, a cop for 15 years, was responding to a noise complaint with his partner during the midnight shift on Dec. 8 on Webster Avenue, near East 203rd Street, when someone called 911 to say he appeared drunk, according to the DA’s office.
A second person then allegedly caught Evans on video slurring his words.
When he got back to the station house, a pair of NYPD sergeants and a captain decided he wasn’t fit to be working.
Evans, who was working in the 52nd Precinct, was released without bail Thursday and is expected back in court on March 7. He has been suspended from the police department without pay, a spokeswoman said.
If convicted of the top charge, he faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to the DA’s office.
Stuart London, an attorney for Evans, disputed the claim that Evans was drunk that day.
“Officer Evans has been a highly respected professional officer for the past 15 and a half years,” London said in an email, adding that Evans served in the Marines. “There is no objective results indicating he was drunk i.e.: no alcohol sensor test administered, no IDTU alcohol testing, no videotaped coordination test. Nothing. These charges are routinely handled administratively. It’s an abuse of prosecutorial discretion to even authorize an arrest based on these facts.”
