A Franklin City Council member was arrested on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge, prompting him to resign from his job as a Johnson County deputy prosecutor.
Andrew C. “Drew” Eggers, 32, of Franklin, was taken to the Johnson County jail about 4 a.m. Sunday.
He is an elected member of the Franklin City Council and was a deputy prosecutor for the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office, where his job was to review cases to decide whether suspects should face criminal charges and prosecute those cases through the county court system. He resigned from the prosecutor’s office as of Monday, Eggers said in a written statement.
He remains a member of the city council.
Prosecutor Brad Cooper will file a motion this morning asking that a special prosecutor be appointed to review Eggers’ case and decide what, if any, criminal charge should be filed, Cooper said.
Eggers had been one of more than 15 deputy prosecutors who work for Cooper and his job included reviewing and prosecuting misdemeanor cases. Eggers had worked for the prosecutor’s office for about 18 months and was previously a defense attorney in Franklin.
“I will address this legal situation in the appropriate fashion and hope to get this resolved expeditiously,” Eggers said in his statement. “I appreciate all the support I have received from my family, friends, colleagues and constituents.”
He has been a city council member since 2016. The city council is an elected board that determines the funding for all city services, such as the parks department and the police and fire departments, and makes decisions on requests such as tax breaks for businesses, rezoning property or changes to the local smoking ban.
A police officer stopped Eggers in the early morning hours Sunday and he failed several sobriety tests, a police report said.
He was pulled over in a neighborhood near Jefferson Street and Westview Drive about 2 a.m. and initially refused to get out of his vehicle when the police officer suspected he had been drinking. The officer could smell alcohol and said Eggers’ eyes were glassy, the report said. Eggers did eventually agree to perform the standard field sobriety tests, the report said. The officer had stopped the vehicle because the driver had not used a turn signal at U.S. 31 and Jefferson Street, the report said.
Eggers demonstrated multiple signs of intoxication during the sobriety tests, the report said.
He refused to take a portable breath test, and police contacted another deputy prosecutor and a local judge to get a warrant to collect and test his blood for blood-alcohol content, the report said. Later, at the Johnson County jail, he did take an alcohol breath-test, which showed 0.104 percent, the police report said. Under state law, a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or more is considered too intoxicated to drive.
The police officer recognized Eggers during the stop due to Eggers’ job and had his supervising sergeant come to the traffic stop as well, the report said.
Eggers was released on $250 cash bond after spending about seven hours in jail. He was housed away from other inmates, which is standard practice whenever possible when a police officer, judge or other person involved in the legal system is arrested in order to keep the person away from inmates they may have been involved in arresting, prosecuting or sentencing.
