Joslynn M. Williams
/ photo: UPD
UTICA -- A Utica woman is arrested under "Leandra's Law" after police say she was driving drunk with two children in the car.
Utica police say they received a report around 11:30 Saturday night of a person unconscious in the driver's seat of her car on the 900 block of Lansing Street. When an officer arrived he says he witnessed Joslynn M. Williams start up her vehicle, turn the headlights on, and throw an empty can of beer out the driver's side window. As the vehicle started to drive away the officer pulled her over and conducted a traffic stop. The officer then says he found Williams to be intoxicated, with a one-year-old and three-month-old child in the car.
Williams was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, littering, driving while intoxicated, aggravated DWI (operating with a child in the car less than 15 years of age - Leandra's Law), and drinking alcohol in a motor vehicle while operating on a highway.
Leandra's Law was signed into law on November 18, 2009 in honor of Leandra Rosado. Leandra was an 11-year-old who was killed while she rode in a vehicle with the intoxicated mother of one of her friends. The law makes it an automatic felony to drive drunk with children in the vehicle.
