GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A mother whose blood alcohol level was triple the legal limit when she crashed her SUV – with three kids inside – was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison.
Monica Mencheski, 32, previously pleaded no contest to recklessly endangering safety, and drunk driving with a minor passenger, court records show. Several other counts were dismissed.
The sentence issued by Brown County Judge Tammy Jo Hock was six months longer than the joint recommendation from the defense attorney and prosecutor.
Mencheski sat with her head down for most of her sentencing, as Hock went into details of the night she was arrested.
“You were so intoxicated that when officers talked to you couldn’t give the names or dates of your children. You were so drunk you couldn’t stand without leaning on the officer. The officer determined, and you said too, that you were too drunk to do the field sobriety test, ” the judge said.
Mencheski, who apologized while citing troubles with trauma and alcohol abuse, was also placed on extended supervision for four years after her prison term is completed.
“I’d like to apologize for how I’ve acted. I know I need help. I know I’ve got drinking problems, substance abuse,” she said. “Like you said, it’s all due to my past. Thinking of the outcome if it could’ve been worse: losing my kids, hitting somebody else, I couldn’t live with myself if that were the outcome.”
According to the criminal complaint: Officers responded to a home on Cormier Rd. May 10 for a vehicle which was stuck on a large rock in the middle of a landscaping area. Police discovered the vehicle left the roadway, drove between two houses, struck a tree, continued through a yard, and struck a utility pole before becoming wedged on the rock.
The driver, Mencheski, couldn’t provide police with the names or ages of the three children in the vehicle. Police later said the children are ages 5, 2 and 3 months.
When asked to perform the field sobriety tests, she responded with, “I am too fat and wobbly to do this”, “I am too drunk”, and “not gonna lie I’m drunk,” the complaint states.
A preliminary breath test showed a blood alcohol level of .240 – three times the legal limit. The results of a blood test were not cited in the complaint.
Mencheski has three previous drunk driving convictions.
Before leaving the courtroom she mouthed the words “I love you” to family. After serving her sentence, Menchski will have four years of extended supervision and three of them she’s required to have an ignition interlock device in her car.
