A Petrolia man provincial police said they pulled over for driving erratically away from a local establishment around closing time told police two things.
The first: He’d had a few drinks that Saturday night.
The second: “You got me.”
Patrick Johnson, 40, was also quick to admit his guilt to a Sarnia courtroom, pleading guilty to an impaired-driving charge as soon as he was able to.
“Which I think shows well in his favor,” defense lawyer Sarah Donohue said earlier this week to a Sarnia judge. “He has a lot of remorse as well, and this is the only time that you’re going to see him before these courts.”
Donohue added her client is taking full responsibility for what happened and wants to move forward with his life. Johnson declined a chance to address the court before he was fined $2,000 and banned from driving for one year.
“Ms. Donohue covered it for me,” he said to Justice Anne McFadyen.
The court heard police noticed a white Chevrolet driving down the middle of Robert Street, a road near a cluster of establishments, and mount a curb while turning onto Eureka Street shortly before 2 am on April 17. Police pulled the vehicle over that Sunday morning as it reached Maple Street.
An officer noticed Johnson’s breath smelled like alcohol, and he was sweating while fumbling around for his vehicle’s documents.
“He advised police that he did have a few alcoholic drinks at the bar and made an utterance: ‘You got me,’” Nila Mulpuru, Lambton’s acting Crown attorney, said while reading an agreed statement of facts.
Following a brief stumble after getting out of his vehicle, Johnson was arrested and taken to the town’s OPP headquarters for tests. Results showed he had between 160 and 170 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood, double the legal limit of 80 milligrams.
Since he had no prior criminal record, both lawyers asked for the same fine and driving ban, which the judge agreed to impose.
A second ugly font charge at the time was withdrawn.