An off-duty police officer was allegedly drinking and driving when he crashed into a parked car in Queens, New York, early one morning, police said. Nelson Puente, 48, assigned to a Queens highway unit, struck a parked car on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica Estates, police sources said.
He was driving down the street and then came to a stop, and when police arrived they found him slumped over the wheel, apparently drunk, with scratches on his head, sources said. Puente refused to take a blood-alcohol test. The officer had his service firearm on him at the time of the arrest.
What this Queens DWI case shows
Refusing the chemical test does not make a DWI case go away. In New York a refusal triggers a separate Department of Motor Vehicles proceeding that can revoke your license for at least a year and impose a civil penalty, entirely apart from the criminal charge, and prosecutors are allowed to tell a jury that you refused. At the same time, a refusal denies the People a numerical reading, which changes how the criminal case has to be proven.
For anyone whose job depends on a clean record or a license, from police officers to nurses to commercial drivers, the stakes reach well beyond the courtroom. If you refused a test, understanding the DMV refusal hearing is urgent, because that clock starts running immediately. A Queens DWI lawyer and DUI attorney can handle both tracks at once.
This write-up is drawn from public news reports at the time and is preserved here for general information only. A charge is an accusation, not proof of guilt, and every person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Nothing here predicts the outcome of any other case, and nothing here is legal advice.