NJ Police Chief Charged With DWI Was Found Laying In The Street

HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, MERCER COUNTY —Bordentown Police Chief Brian Pesce was found laying in the road when officers from Hamilton Township found him and charged him with drunk driving on April 22, according to police records.

Patch had filed an Open Public Records Act with Hamilton Township, Mercer County to receive the police report related to the charge Pesce faces.

At about 8:20 p.m. the night Pesce was charged, a woman called 911 after a red pickup truck came into her lane of traffic on Deacon Drive, nearly causing a "head-on collision," according to the police report.

The woman also told authorities she saw the person in the truck exit the vehicle on Bruin Drive and was barely able to stand, the police report said.

As a police officer approached the area of the alleged incident, they saw a smashed mailbox and then saw a white man laying next to a truck the witness had described, according to the police report. The man had vomit next to him, had a laceration above one of his eyes and a contusion on the back of his head "approximately the size of a golf ball," according to the police report.

The police officer, concerned the man had a concussion, wrote in the report that he called emergency medical technicians to the scene. The man was identified as Pesce, according to the police report.

Pesce was unabe to standup and sit on the emergency medical technicians' strecher without assistance, the police report continued.

During several police interviews, Pesce allegedly told police in a slurred, slow voice that he had had a "few drinks 10 hours ago" at an event honoring a Bordentown Township employee who had recently died, according to the police report. Pesce also allegedly claimed someone else was driving the truck and that person left him at the truck, according to the police report.

However, Pesce neither identified the friend nor why he was left there, the police report said. A search of the area where Pesce was found in the street failed to locate the other person Pesce described, the police report continued.

Police drew blood from Pesce and released him to the custody of his wife, according to the police report.

Besides the drunken driving charge described earlier, Pesce was also charged with reckless driving and careless driving, leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage and failing to report an accident, the police report said.

He has been placed on restricted duty until further notice pending the investigation results, 6abc.com previously reported.

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