Former Lawrenceville mayor Brian Straub, in one of his Lawrence County mugshots from a couple of years ago.
LAWRENCE CO., Ill./GIBSON CO., Ind. - The decline of a former mayor of Lawrenceville continues with his most recent arrest.
Brian Straub, 53, was arrested last night in Gibson County, Indiana, and charged with DUI after a collision with a truck on U.S 41 in that county.
Gibson County officials said that an accident was reported on 41 at the intersection of State Road 68 at 6:14 p.m. Tuesday, December 20, and when deputies arrived, they found Straub as the driver of the 2016 passenger car that rear-ended a 2015 Freightliner pulling a trailer.
The responding deputy noticed an odor of alcohol on Straub and had Straub perform the requisite field sobriety tests, which he apparently failed. He was toted off to the Gibson County Jail where he posted bond for release on an arresting charge of Operating While Intoxicated (OWI), with a "refusal" noted in the charging document, meaning Straub apparently refused to blow or have blood drawn for testing.
Straub was arrested and charged with meth-related counts a few months after he lost the 2013 election in which he ran for a third term as mayor; in November of 2014 he entered a plea to Meth Possession and was sentenced to two years probation on November 10, 2015. That means that this arrest in and of itself should be enough to violate the probation...but we'll see what authorities in Lawrence do.