ONLY ON 3: Judge dismisses Fire Chief’s DWI charge, refused to wait few hours for trooper

BRUNSWICK COUNTY (WWAY) – A Brunswick County Fire Chief is off the hook for a DWI charge after a judge decided to dismiss his case this week on a technicality.

Oak Island Fire Chief John House was charged with DWI in December 2008 when investigators say he was stopped at a checkpoint and blew a .14 – almost twice the legal limit of .08.

This week, House was scheduled for a case management hearing that included a supression motion. District Attorney Rex Gore says at the last minute, the Assistant D.A. handling the care realized she had subpoenaed the wrong state trooper to testify about how the checkpoint was set up. The trooper who could testify was at a meeting in Fayetteville, and couldn’t get to Bolivia until later in the afternoon. Gore says the ADA asked for a continuance until the trooper could get there but Judge Ola Lewis denied the motion and threw out the charge.

When we talked to Gore this afternoon, he gave us a seemingly “politically correct” statement saying, “Given the people involved, and their professionalism, I’m certain that, while it’s an unfortunate incident, everybody handled the situation as they thought best under the circumstances.”

We talked to Judge Lewis this afternoon to get her side of the story. She told us that she couldn’t comment because of something she called “judicial law.” When we reminded her the case was over, she still wouldn’t talk about it.