{"id":21390,"date":"2025-07-18T21:46:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T21:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-san-juan-deputy-da-found-guilty-in-dwi-case-after-bench-trial\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:06:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:06:02","slug":"former-san-juan-deputy-da-found-guilty-in-dwi-case-after-bench-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-san-juan-deputy-da-found-guilty-in-dwi-case-after-bench-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Former San Juan deputy DA found guilty in DWI case after bench trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"San
San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O'Brien has been arrested under suspicion of drunken driving after a Sept. 15 single vehicle crash.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A former San Juan County chief deputy district attorney has been sentenced in an aggravated DWI case.<\/p>\n

Dustin O\u2019Brien, 53, was found guilty in a bench trial presiding over by Judge Thomas Pestak.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien was sentenced to 90 days in the San Juan County Detention Center with a $500 fine, but Judge Pestak awarded time served of two days and suspended 88 days of the sentence and ordered 364 days of supervised probation.<\/p>\n

The fine also was suspended and O\u2019Brien was ordered to pay a $5 fine.<\/p>\n

The charge was in connection to a one-vehicle, hit-and-run crash around 1:26 p.m. Sept. 15 in the 900 block of Gladeview Drive, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Farmington Police were called to the scene, where they found a 2022 Dodge Ram 1500 with \u201cheavy damage to the driver-side and passenger-side front bumpers,\u201d as the vehicle was crashed into a retaining wall, court records state.<\/p>\n

When police searched the truck, they found \u201ctwo 375 ml bottles of Canadian Mist whiskey under the driver\u2019s seat.\u201d One was empty, while the second had \u201chalf its contents consumed,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n

The homeowner, where the crash occurred, provided police with a Ring camera video of the crash and an officer identified O\u2019Brien as the person seen exiting the truck and walking away from the scene, court records state.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien was found 30 minutes later near the Speedway at the intersection of North Dustin Avenue and East 20th Street, court records state.<\/p>\n

The officer was described O\u2019Brien as having a \u201cslow, slurred speech and the odor of an intoxicating beverage on his person and exhaled breath,\u201d and O\u2019Brien admitted to drinking one or two alcoholic beverages that morning.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien declined a breath test and did not want to participate in a field sobriety test, but then submitted to a horizontal gaze test, a walk-and-turn test and a one-legged stand test, all of which \u201che failed\u201d and reportedly \u201cstruggled to maintain his balance,\u201d according to the probable cause statement.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien told police he believed he was \u201csafe to drive,\u201d but \u201cwas not \u2018feeling good\u2019 to drive.\u201d He refused medical attention, according to the probable cause statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O\u2019Brien sentenced to supervised probation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77290,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21390\/revisions\/77290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21390"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}