Sweeney continues to sink -- updated

CLIFTON PARK -- Former U.S. Rep. John Sweeney was charged with drunken driving early this morning after a traffic stop on the Northway, State Police said.

The arrest was the latest embarrassment for a one-time Congressional rising star whose re-election campaign was derailed last year by allegations of domestic violence.

Sweeney was pulled over by a state trooper on the Northway in Saratoga County at 1:20 a.m., police said.

Police said he was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Sweeney's attorney, E. Stewart Jones, confirmed the arrest on Sunday. He denied that his client had a drinking problem and said that Sweeney, who lost a bid for re-election last year, would try to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

"He is a private citizen," Jones said. "This is a private matter."

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State Police had no comment when asked the identity of the passenger in Sweeney's 2004 BMW sedan. Sweeney was also ticketed for driving erratically. A law enforcement source said Sweeney's car had been swerving and the woman was seated partially on his lap when Trooper Phillip Dickson first spotted him.

Sweeney's blood alcohol content registered at .10 percent when he was checked at the Clifton Park station, according to Lt. Scott Cobura. He was ordered to appear in Clifon Park Town Court Wednesday night at 7 p.m.

See the thing about Republicans is their superior morals and values. Like that photo of Sweeney when he was drunk at a college party while he was still serving in Congress.

Or the charges of domestic violence Sweeney's wife leveled against him, which Sweeney lied about in an attempt to preserve his political career.

Or the pro-Bush mob Sweeney led to intimidate Miami vote counters during the 2000 theft of the Presidency from Al Gore.

All in all, I'd say this couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

UPDATE:

State Police say Sweeney was operating a vehicle which nearly struck their police cruiser as they were responding to an unrelated call. Sweeney blew a .18, more than twice the state’s legal threshold of .08 blood alcohol content.

UPDATE:

Sweeney’s son, John Jr., was charged with second degree assault in Stillwater on Aug. 19, 2004, which seriously injured the victim. Although Sweeney, Jr. could have faced seven years in prison for the vicious assault, he escaped jail time. In a rare action, in December 2005, Republican Fulton County Judge Richard Giardino reversed his earlier decision to sentence Sweeney Jr., then 19, and John J. Manupella of Troy, also 19, to jail for a brutal assault of another teen which fractured the victim’s skull and left him with long-term vision damage and recurring nightmares. He also had to undergo reconstructive dental work after losing one tooth and having three others chipped in the assault.

Sweeney and Manupella had pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of four months of weekends in jail or 45 consecutive days in jail plus probation and community service. But when they appeared in court, Judge Giardino negated the plea agreement, suspended the jail time, granted them youthful offender status, and sealed the court records.

The sentence did not please the victim, Matthew Brady, 20, of Stillwater who said he believed the pair got such favorable treatment because Sweeney's father is a Congressman.

UPDATE:

On the night of January 23, 2001, Sweeney was driving away from Willard, where he'd passed the evening skiing. Just before 10 p.m., he lost control of his vehicle and hit the utility pole. He told police he was fidgeting with his CD player. He was not hurt. A woman who lives along the road, Donna English -- who happens to be a local Republican councilwoman -- came out to offer assistance. A state-police trooper arrived on the scene. Live electrical wires lay strewn across Vly Summit Road. A local volunteer-fire-department chief offered to send a crew to the site to direct traffic, a common enough procedure in rural areas. But the fire chief was told by the state police that no assistance was needed. Instead, it was left to English to direct traffic. For an hour and a half.

Nothing strange about any of that, right? Maybe not. But editors at the Glens Falls Post-Star came to suspect otherwise. Small-town newspapers routinely call around to local police detachments and ask if anything unusual has happened lately. A Post-Star reporter did indeed call the state police covering the area where the crash occurred. But the reporter was never told about it. Then, seven days later, the paper learned about the accident via an anonymous e-mail from a reader. And this got the paper pondering a few questions. On February 1, it ran a benign story under the headline sweeney unhurt in crash. A February 2 story by reporter Don Lehman dug a little deeper, with state police explaining that Sweeney "was treated just like any other citizen."

UPDATE:

Sweeney pleads guilty. What's the matter? Couldn't fix the case like the one his son was involved in?