U.S. Senate candidate Alex Zdan has self-disclosed that he was stopped for driving under the influence of alcohol four years ago as his campaign for Bob Menendez’s U.S. Senate seat begins to pick up steam.
“I wanted you to hear this from me: I have a DUI on my driving record. I wanted to disclose this information as we head into screening committees in Bergen, Somerset, and Gloucester Counties,” Zdan said. “On a night in 2020, I behaved wrongly and irresponsibly during a time of personal stress and amid the social isolation of the pandemic. I thank God I did not hurt anyone – or myself in this incident. I was arrested and released of my own recognizance shortly after.”
Records show that Zdan was stopped in Hopewell shortly before 11 PM on August 24, 2020.
“I pleaded guilty, was given a suspended sentence, paid fines and surcharges, and completed the terms of my agreement without incident,” he said.
Additional traffic tickets were dismissed, and his license was not suspended.
In a statement to the New Jersey Globe, Zdan expressed remorse for the incident.
“No one is perfect – but no one is above the law. I’ve learned from my mistakes and have endeavored to improve myself every day,” he said. “We are all on a journey in life, and I ask forgiveness for this inexcusable lapse in judgment – which will never happen again.”
Zdan’s Senate campaign scored a major victory last Thursday when he won the organization line in Monmouth County, one of the state’s premier Republican organizations.
Similar charges have not derailed candidates in the past.
Just before the 2000 election, George W. Bush acknowledged that he had pled guilty to a DUI offense in 1976. His running mate, Dick Cheney, publicly conceded that he had two drunk driving incidents in the early 1960s; he had privately disclosed this to the White House in 1989, before he was nominated U.S. Secretary of State.
The New Jersey Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Justice Robert Clifford, who was convicted of drunk driving in 1989. The court said that ”a public reprimand is essential both to vindicate the interests of the judiciary and to maintain the public’s confidence in it.”
Princeton police had stopped Clifford for driving while intoxicated; he refused a Breathalyzer test and was taken to the local police station. He later pleaded guilty and lost his license for one year.
Clifford served on the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1973 until his retirement in 1994. He was arrested again for drunk driving in 2000 after his car collided with a small bridge in Bernards Township, where he lived. Since a decade had passed since his first DUI, state law allowed him to be treated as a first-time offender.
Since 2005, twelve New Jersey judges have faced DUI/DWI charges, court records show.
State Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris Plains) was arrested for drunk driving and pleaded guilty in 2005. He lost his license for three months and was able to keep the charges out of public view for nearly a year.
The news about Martin came out after he defended Attorney General Zulima Farber on issues related to her own driving record. Martin, a Seton Hall law professor and longtime municipal prosecutor, won one of four Republicans to vote to confirm Farber’s nomination
In a “do you know who am I am?” moment, Farber got in trouble in 2006 after her boyfriend, former Assembly candidate Hamlet Goore, was stopped in Fairview for driving an unregistered vehicle. Driven by a New Jersey State Trooper, Farber arrived at the scene, and coincidentally, tickets were withdrawn, and police declined to impound the car.
A special investigation found that Farber did not violate any laws or ethical rules, but the incident became politically tricky for Gov. Jon Corzine, and she resigned.
(Goore sought the Democratic nomination for State Assembly in 1977 but lost the primary to incumbent Richard J. Codey by a near 3-1 margin.)