A 75-year-old Village of Mallory Square woman facing suspicion of drunk driving, told a Sumter County sheriff’s deputy, “I am an old lady. I am not a criminal.”
Diamantina M. Correia was pulled over shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday near the entrance to the Village of Bridgeport at Lake Sumter. A deputy had spotted her red Hyundai westbound on Old Mill Run and straying into the golf cart lane, according to an arrest report.
Correia had “a thick tongue, with slurred speech and was lethargic,” the report indicated. She indicated she had been at Cody’s Original Roadhouse.
She struggled through field sobriety exercises and at one point told the deputy, “Just take me to jail already.”
During the trip to the Sumter County Detention Center, Correia verbally chastised the deputy.
“Why are you arresting me? I am an old lady. I am not a criminal,” she said.
Correia suggested that the deputy could have simply driven her home.
She also stretched the truth about her age.
“You guys have nothing better to do than arresting an 85-year-old woman who is not a criminal,” she said.
She provided breath samples that registered .184 and .182 blood alcohol content.
She had been arrested on a DUI charge in 2010 in Sumter County, but was able to bargain that down to a reckless driving charge.
She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $2,000 bond.
