Naples, Florida, police arrested Mayor Teresa Heitmann on Aug. 28 for allegedly driving under the influence, and body-worn camera footage shows the mayor taking a sobriety field test prior to her arrest.
Police initially responded to a residence in the 500 block of 16th Avenue South after receiving a call from a man and his wife saying an unknown woman in a silver vehicle had followed them from 12th Avenue South and 3rd Street South — a popular strip of restaurants and shops in downtown Naples — to their residence.
When the couple arrived at their residence, the unknown woman “stopped her vehicle on the grass in front of their home,” and after a brief exchange, the couple called police, the Naples Police Department said in a press release.
“Don’t call me mayor,” Heitmann can be heard telling a Naples officer after being pulled over, around the 09:36-minute mark in the police footage obtained by Fox News Digital. “I am Teresa Heitmann right now. I am not the mayor.”
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Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann completes a field sobriety test. (Naples PD)
“OK,” the officer responds.
The officer then begins to tell Heitmann what the callers told police over dispatch, at which point Heitmann interrupts.
“They ran me off the road,” Heitmann can be heard telling police in the footage obtained by Fox News Digital. “I went, ‘Woah.'”
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“What they told me is that you ran the stop sign on 12th Avenue and almost hit them,” the officer says, earning a laugh from Heitmann. “You then followed them, flashing your headlights, and they got home, and you stopped here. … Then they asked you what was going on, and you wouldn’t answer them, so they started taking down your license plate. Then, you told them, ‘I’m the mayor.'”
Naples, Florida, police identified the driver as Mayor Teresa Heitmann. (Collier County)
The officer then tells Heitmann that he believes she might be intoxicated, and the mayor says she had a glass of wine but refutes that she is intoxicated. The officer then asks her to consent to a field sobriety test, which she does.
While conducting the test, the officer asks Heitmann multiple times if she would like to take off her heels and do the test barefoot, but she declines.
Upon completion of the test, responding officers “found probable cause to arrest Mrs. Heitmann for driving under the influence of an intoxicating substance,” police said.
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Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann completes a field sobriety test. (Naples PD)
Authorities transported the mayor to Naples Jail Center, where she agreed to participate in a breathalyzer test to determine her blood-alcohol content. Following the breathalyzer, police determined that she had a BAC of 0.155 and 0.169, while the legal limit in Florida is 0.08.
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“City employees were saddened to learn about last week’s incident involving the Mayor,” Naples City Manager Jay Boodheshwar told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Naples community should rest assured that our City team is committed and dedicated to serving our residents. I have 100% confidence that our City employees will not let this incident affect service delivery to our community.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Heitmann’s attorney, James Derek Verderamo, for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita contributed to this report.
