STURGEON BAY (NBC 26) — According to the Door County Sheriff's Office 2022 annual report, Door County saw 132 OWI arrests last year.
Chief Deputy Pat McCarty of the Door County Sheriff's Office says this isn't a problem unique to Door County and monitoring these individuals is a priority.
"Unfortunately, we do see that there are a number of times where people re-offend with OWI,” said McCarty.
One man from Sturgeon Bay is currently awaiting an initial appearance for his seventh and eighth OWI. Both incidences happened on the same day. Court records show Steven Lemens has been a repeat OWI offender since 2006.
Around noon on June 27, investigators say Lemens decided to take his girlfriend’s 2004 Toyota Camry out to run errands.
A timeline laid out in a criminal complaint says Lemens returned about two hours later intoxicated, angry and without the car.
Ten minutes later at 2:30 p.m., EMS was dispatched to a flipped car near the intersection of Riley’s Bay Road and County Road C.
Officers found Lemen’s wallet on the road next to the Toyota. The complaint says officers got a call to head to Lemens' house about a mile away as Lemens had walked a mile home from the flipped car.
When police arrived, the complaints say Lemens hopped into another vehicle and took off.
Officers arrested Lemens a short time later.
District attorney Colleen Nordin for Door County said it is not common for people to have multiple OWI offenses in one day- and they have policies in place to try and keep the community safe.
"If the person is able to post the cash bond, we'll ask that the judge have them be monitored by way of an ankle monitor or a handheld breath device so that we can ensure that they're not continuing to consume alcohol. We also set other bond conditions such as no operating a motor vehicle without a valid license, and things like that to try to protect the community," said Nordin.
Along with revoking the individuals' license, Nordin says repeat offenders have other penalties to answer to.
"If somebody is convicted of an OWI, and particularly a seventh and eighth offense, there is mandatory minimum prison time, and then they'd be released to extended supervision after a period of time and there will be rules enforced by the department of corrections as it relates to their conditions of parole to include absolute sobriety," said Nordin.
Nordin said OWI cases are high across the state. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation said, “There were almost 23,000 OWI convictions in Wisconsin in 2022. One out of three people with OWIs on their driver records are repeat offenders.”
Door County is not immune to repeat OWI offenders but the county does its best to handle the cases they see.
"We do have a lot of OWI cases, and we try to handle them as best that we can," said Nordin.
