District court judge charged with DWI

HOOKERTON — A district court judge who has served Lenoir and Greene counties for the last decade has found himself on the other side of the legal system after a recent arrest for driving while impaired.

“I hate this for my family,” Judge Lonnie W. Carraway said Friday.

Carraway has served on the district court bench in the 8th Judicial District since 2000 and practiced law in Snow Hill for 17 years before being elected a judge.

The N.C. Highway Patrol reported Friday that Trooper B.R. Beaman responded around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday to a report of a one-vehicle accident near the intersection of Charlie Waters Road and Four Way Loop Road near Hookerton.

A 2005 Nissan Altima, driven by Carraway, was found in a ditch on the right-hand side of Charlie Waters Road.

As Beaman investigated the crash and spoke with the judge, he suspected Carraway “was under the influence of prescription drugs,” the highway patrol stated in a Friday news release.

The trooper arrested Carraway, charging him with DWI and taking him to Snow Hill, where he was examined by a drug recognition expert.

The officer took a blood sample from Carraway and sent it to the State Bureau of Investigation for analysis. The Highway Patrol reported it could take several weeks for the results to come back.

Carraway was then taken before a local magistrate and released on an unsecured bond, the Highway Patrol said. He is scheduled to appear in Greene County court on March 30, 2012.

Carraway said he had returned home from work that evening, and after a few hours, remembered he was supposed to pick up a ham from a friend who lived in the Four Way Road area.

He said he takes several medications, including the sleep aid zolpidem, a generic form of Ambien, and Prilosec to treat acid reflux. Carraway said he takes the zolpidem nightly.

The judge said he did not feel intoxicated when he went to his friend’s home and, returning to his own home, was not driving at a high rate of speed.

He said the crash happened almost instantaneously.

“It was a two-second thing,” he said.

Carraway said he was not hurt in the accident and no one else was involved. He is scheduled to hold court in Lenoir County next week, but plans to meet then with David B. Brantley, chief district court judge for the 8th District, which includes Wayne, Greene and Lenoir counties.

“I’m glad no one was around,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t hurt anybody.”