A Sheriff's lieutenant arrested last month on suspicion of driving under the influence has been charged with two misdemeanor counts in the case.
Lt. Erin Lorraine Giudice, 48, lost her job as Harbormaster and was reassigned to Orange County Jail after she was arrested April 14 by Irvine police.
Giudice was charged with one DUI count and one count of driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or more.
Giudice had a blood alcohol level of 0.14 two hours after the arrest, prosecutors said.
At around 9 p.m. on April 14, Giudice was driving an unmarked Sheriff's Department vehicle north on 5 freeway, and rear-ended another car stopped at a red light on the Jamboree Road offramp, prosecutors said.
When the arrest was initially reported, the Sheriff's Department declined to say whether Giudice had been driving a department vehicle at the time.
The other car had minor damage and the driver was uninjured, prosecutors said.
When Irvine police arrived at the scene of the accident, they found that Giudice was slurring her speech, had bloodshot and watery eyes, and poor balance, prosecutors said.
Giudice is scheduled to be arraigned June 19 at Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
The case will be prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Keith Bogardus of the Special Prosecutions Unit, which handles prosecution of law-enforcement officers, among other duties.
Capt. Dave Nighswonger, who oversees the sheriff's internal affairs unit, said after the arrest that the department did not have a specific policy addressing consequences for a DUI conviction.
"We have department policies that require employees to obey the law," Nighswonger said. "Then there's canons of ethics that hold our department employees accountable."
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