For a guy who hasn’t had a drink in “. . . about a year and a half”, Tom Lewand sure had a lot of alcohol built up in his system. Even after arguing with Roscommon County (MI) sheriff deputies for an hour he still managed to blow a BAC of .21%, nearly three times the legal limit. Unfortunately for Mr. Lewand, his efforts do not land him in the Top Twenty of the World Famous BadJocks BAC Rankings, but it does put him as the “leader in the clubhouse” so far in 2010.
If you read the report of Lewand’s arrest, very little of it makes sense. He was “up north” in Michigan, reportedly attending a charity golf tournament. When pulled over by officers who have dash-cam video of him driving erratically, the president of operations for the Detroit Lions denied he had been drinking and claimed he was actually a “designated driver” that evening on his way to pick up a friend. When asked about the smell of alcohol, Lewand insisted he was sober, telling officers he hadn’t had anything to drink, “Not a thing. No. No. I haven’t had a thing to drink in about a year and a half.” He then refused to take a breathalyzer, saying something about this brother-in-law being a Chicago cop and warning him about some kind of false-positive for the test. Eventually, officers got tired of the games with Lewand and cuffed him, but did get a breath test from him more than an hour later at the station. Even then, his numbers are pretty impressive: at 185 lbs (from the police report) Lewand would have had to have consumed–according to our charts–approximately 10 drinks in the hour before his arrest, although no one has reported seeing him drinking. And even stranger: what could lead a Detroit Lions executive to drink?
Oh yeah.
The real question for the NFL is whether they will punish a team executive the same way they would a player who is also arrested for drunk driving.
Here’s more on the story from the Detroit Free Press:
Lewand, who has a law degree among three degrees from Michigan, continued stalling. He told the deputies he had previously discussed such a situation with his brother-in-law — “a Chicago cop” — and was worried about getting a false positive. He later told the deputies he was a lawyer.
“We’ve been way too patient with you,” a deputy said before warning Lewand that he had one last chance to say he would take the Breathalyzer test. Lewand did not answer until the deputy told him to turn around to be handcuffed. Lewand said, “I’ll blow, I’ll blow,” but the officers’ patience apparently had run out. They arrested Lewand and put him in the patrol car.
About an hour later at the Roscommon County Sheriff’s office, according to a police report on the incident, Lewand consented to a breath test that showed his blood-alcohol content was 2 1/2 times the legal limit of .08. The report said Lewand registered .21 and .20 in tests 3 minutes apart.
It also said Lewand told a deputy he “was the designated driver” and went to Limberlost Fine Food and Spirits “to pick a friend up.” Deputies pulled Lewand over within minutes of leaving the bar and restaurant’s parking lot. He was alone. The police report noted there was a “strong odor of intoxicants coming from the driver compartment” and Lewand’s eyes were “glossy and bloodshot.”
Bob Hallauer, the owner of the Limberlost for 10 years, said Lewand was the victim of overzealous cops trying to raise money by issuing tickets on M-55. “Come on vacation, leave on probation — that’s what people say about Houghton Lake,” Hallauer said.
