WINONA, Minn. – City Council member George Borzyskowski has gotten off the hook for drunken driving last November. Two charges of driving while intoxicated were dropped. Winona County’s attorney, Karin Sonneman, who is responsible for prosecuting crimes, denied affording favored treatment for Borzyskowski, who has been on the City Council 28 years. Sonneman explained that she sometimes drops drunken charges if the defendant’s blood-alcohol content was low and if they’ve been cooperative and acknowledged their mistake and have taken steps to address. About Borzyskowski, she told the Winona Post:
“Some people just blow it off and won’t take responsibility. Then there are other people, like Mr. Borzyskowski and many others, who recognize that they made a mistake and that they want to take the steps to not repeat it again. Those are the people we don’t see again. I don’t give people special treatment based on who they are, what they do. We look at the circumstances of the case, the evidence, the facts. Anybody who is cooperative, remorseful, takes steps to address whatever led them to the circumstances they found themselves in, whether [driving while intoxicated] or any other kind of case, I take those into consideration.”
A city police officer made the stop, at 1:23 a.m. on November 17. Borzyskowski, who was driving home, had failed to maintain his traffic lane and signaled for turns he never made. A sheriff’s deputy who arrived at the scene shortly thereafter said Borzyskowski smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot and watery eyes, and failed field sobriety tests. His blood-alcohol tested at 0.09% — 12-1/2% higher than the legal limit of 0.08%. The two charges of driving while intoxicated were dropped in a plea deal in exchange for pleading guilty to careless driving. For careless driving Borzyskowsk will serve 12 months of unsupervised probation and a $485 fine.
Sonneman. County prosecutor. Denies favoritism. Casts her decision as a judgment call. Says she looks at the totality of situations like Borzyskowski’s