Suspect in U.S. illegally, police say

LoHud.com
By Danielle De Souza and Brian J. Howard
drdesouz@lohud.com
August 25, 2009

BREWSTER- In what is becoming a disturbing and familiar trend in and around this tiny village, police have charged yet another illegal immigrant with driving drunk.

Jose Morales, 32, of Brewster also was driving without a license when he was stopped by Brewster police at 460 N. Main St. at 11:47 p.m. Saturday after being seen driving without headlights, police said.

Morales had a blood-alcohol content of 0.21 percent, police said.

"That is almost three times the limit," Brewster Police Officer-in-Charge John DelGardo said. The threshold for driving while intoxicated is 0.08 percent.

DelGardo said Morales was determined to be in the country illegally.

Morales, who is originally from Guatemala, was arrested, taken to the Putnam County jail and issued four tickets. He was charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated driving while intoxicated, both misdemeanors, and operating a vehicle without a license and driving without headlights, both infractions.

He is being held on $5,000 bond and is due in Village Court on Sept. 14.

Morales is the fourth illegal immigrant to be arrested on drunken-driving charges in Brewster since a June 8 fatal accident that involved a driver accused of being drunk and identified by police as an illegal immigrant.

Lori Donohue, 37, and her daughter Kayla, 8, were walking out of a dance school near Main Street and Route 22 when they were struck and killed by a pickup truck.

The driver, identified by police as Zacaria Conses-Garcia, has been indicted on two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.

The accident drew calls from the community for more crackdowns on illegal immigrants. But similar incidents have followed.

A 43-year-old Southeast man, who police say was unlicensed and in the country illegally, was charged July 19 with driving while intoxicated after his brother's minivan struck a car transporting a family of five. A 4-year-old boy

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