Saukville woman charged with 6th OWI offense

A 35-year-old Saukville woman who when confronted by authorities called her boyfriend and within earshot of an officer told him to say he was driving her car was charged last week with drunken driving for a sixth time.

Amy L. Endahl was arrested after authorities received a report of her Honda CR-V swerving on Highway I in the Town of Saukville at about 4:20 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, according to the criminal complaint filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. 

The driver who called authorities followed the Honda as it traveled east on Hillcrest Road and then stopped on Regis Road in Saukville, where Endahl lives. 

When an Ozaukee County sheriff’s deputy and a Saukville police officer arrived at Endahl’s home, she greeted them in the driveway. The deputy noticed that her eyes were bloodshot, her speech was slurred, she smelled of alcohol and was swaying, the complaint states.

Endahl told the officers that she had come from a friend’s house in Jackson but that her boyfriend had been driving and left in his truck immediately after they returned to Endahl’s home.

The officers, who didn’t see anyone leaving Endahl’s house when they pulled up, asked Endahl to contact her boyfriend so he could corroborate her story, then noticed several items in the passenger seat of her Honda that suggested no one had been sitting there, according to the complaint.

Endahl went into her house to make a phone call and was presumably talking to her boyfriend when the deputy heard her say, “I am going to get another OWI and go to jail for 10 years. The police are literally outside right now. I need you to talk to them and tell them we were at Maria’s and that you drove me home,” according to the complaint.

The officers said they didn’t need to speak with Endahl’s boyfriend and instead asked her to perform field sobriety tests. Endahl refused because she insisted she wasn’t driving, the complaint states.

Endahl was taken to a hospital where her blood was drawn for testing.

She later admitted to drinking four Bud Light Seltzers between noon and 3:15 p.m. but continued to deny she was driving, according to the complaint.

Although the threshold for drunken driving is a blood alcohol level of 0.08, it is 0.02 for Endahl because of her five previous convictions for intoxicated driving.

Sixth-offense drunken driving is a felony punishable by a maximum five years in prison and five years of extended supervision, as well as a $25,000 fine.

Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain set Endahl’s bail at $10,000 last week.