MILLINOCKET, Maine — A town councilor who was sentenced Wednesday for driving drunk repeatedly denied drinking on the day of her arrest and changed her story during the investigative process, according to an incident report filed by police.
Gilda Stratton, 69, had no comment after Millinocket District Court Judge Kevin Stitham sentenced her to 72 hours in an alternative sentencing program, a $600 fine and 150-day driver’s license suspension for abandoning her Pontiac sedan in a snowbank on Central Street and going home on Jan. 19.
Her attorney, Nolan Tanous, also declined to comment.
A Breathalyzer test performed on Stratton at the police station a few hours after the crash revealed she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16, which is twice Maine’s legal limit of 0.08 for operating a vehicle, police have said.
According to the incident report released Wednesday by Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy, Stratton several times denied having consumed alcohol during a police interview at her home. Then she admitted to having one drink “at a friend’s on the way back” before leaving her Pontiac sedan in a snowbank on Central Street and going to her home, according to the report.
She also repeatedly tried to drink coffee and eat candy in Millinocket police Officer David Cram’s presence despite his warnings not to, protested with vulgarities when he said that he would be arresting her when she failed a field sobriety test, and blamed several medical conditions for her failure to pass the test. Stratton also implied that officers, including Police Chief Steve Kenyon, were targeting her because she is a town councilor, according to the report.
“I told Gilda that I could smell alcohol on her breath,” wrote Cram in the incident report. “Gilda asked if I was … kidding, and I told her that I wasn’t. Gilda went into the kitchen and started to pour a cup of coffee. I told Gilda that I did not want her to eat or drink anything until I was finished talking to her. I took the cup of coffee before Gilda had a chance to drink any of it and poured it out into the sink.”
Stratton said “‘Are you … kidding?’ and ‘You’ve got to be … kidding,’ several times during the arrest process, Cram wrote.
Later in the booking process, “Gilda talked some more about why I was doing this to her and that she picked up for the Fire and Police Departments,” Cram wrote.
When Stratton was given the Breathalyzer at the police station, she “started to cough about that time and started talking about asthma in reference to her not being able to take the test,” Cram wrote. “Gilda asked about using an inhaler, and I told her that she couldn’t use an inhaler until after the test.”
“If Gilda needed medical attention, I would have sought medical attention for her,” Cram wrote. “Gilda said that her problem was that if she took medication and if she had one drink it wasn’t good. I told her that if she knew that then she shouldn’t drive.”
Almy complimented Cram for doing good, thorough police work, such as backtracking Stratton’s steps before the accident, in the face of an implicit threat of retribution from a town leader.
A retired paralegal secretary and former Great Northern Paper Co. administrative assistant, Stratton’s three-year term expires in November 2017. She was first elected to the council in November 2011.
Cram interviewed a friend of Stratton’s who said that on the day of the accident, Stratton had one mixed vodka drink at her home and then traveled to a Lincoln restaurant where she had two martinis of about 2.5 ounces each. Cram collected the information to answer Stratton’s claims that she drank only after the accident, Almy said.
“It’s nice to see [police] doing the job the way they are supposed to do it,” Almy said, “especially with the fact that it is a person in an official capacity.”
Wednesday’s sentencing followed a March 9 court appearance in which Stratton pleaded guilty. Stitham directed Stratton to surrender her driver’s license at the court after her appearance and she will begin making $50 monthly payments of her fine next month.