{"id":23572,"date":"2025-02-12T10:22:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/extension-granted-in-deputy-das-dwi-case-in-san-juan-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:38:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:38:55","slug":"extension-granted-in-deputy-das-dwi-case-in-san-juan-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/extension-granted-in-deputy-das-dwi-case-in-san-juan-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Extension granted in deputy DA\u2019s DWI case in San Juan County"},"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 90-day extension was filed in the case of a San Juan County District Attorney charged with drunken driving.<\/p>\n

Former Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O\u2019Brien, 53, was charged Sept. 15 with aggravated DWI and failure to give immediate notice of a crash in the 900 block of Gladeview Drive. Both charges are petty misdemeanors.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, who was put on leave pending the investigation, was set to be in court Feb. 11 for a pretrial hearing, by Judge Thomas G. Pestak signed an order allowing for the extension of time for trial stipulating that it needs to be completed within 90 days.<\/p>\n

Because of the order, the trial must happen on or before Sept. 15, and the next pretrial hearing has been set for 9 a.m. April 15.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien reportedly was involved in a one-vehicle, hit-and-run crash around 1:26 p.m. Sept. 15 at a home in the 900 block of Gladeview Drive, according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n

Farmington Police were called to the scene and found a 2022 Dodge Ram 1500 with a camper shell crashed into a retaining wall, according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n

According to the statement, there was \u201cheavy damage to the driver-side and passenger-side front bumpers,\u201d and the driver-side rear bumper was against the wall.<\/p>\n

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

Police located O\u2019Brien 30 minutes later near the Speedway at the intersection of North Dustin Avenue and East 20th Street.<\/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 according to the statement of probable cause.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien reportedly admitted to drinking one or two alcoholic beverages at 8 a.m. Sept. 15 and allegedly stated, \u201che felt he was safe to drive,\u201d court records state.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien reportedly 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 allegedly stated he \u201cwas not \u2018feeling good\u2019 to drive,\u201d but refused medical attention, according to the probable cause statement.<\/p>\n

Police wrote in the report that they located \u201ctwo 375ml bottles of Canadian Mist whiskey under the driver\u2019s seat,\u201d and one was empty, while the second had \u201chalf its contents consumed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office assigned Taos District Attorney Marcus Montoya to handle the case. Montoya appointed Senior Trial Prosecutor Harvey Means to prosecute O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Sierra County Judge Thomas Pestak is hearing the case. Farmington attorney Mitchel Burns is representing O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deputy DA O\u2019Brien\u2019s trial must happen before Sept. 15<\/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":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23572","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=23572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78184,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23572\/revisions\/78184"}],"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=23572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23572"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}