Kobierowski

PROVIDENCE — The attorney general’s office is battling in court with Stanley Kobierowski, who crashed his pickup truck on Route 95, allegedly after driving drunk with what an expert called a near-fatal level of alcohol in his blood.

Prosecutors are seeking Kobierowski’s blood-alcohol content as determined at Rhode Island Hospital after he crashed into a highway electronic message board just before midnight July 21, then struggled with state troopers and was injured.

But neither Kobierowski nor the hospital want them to have it, citing privacy concerns.

“Blood doesn’t lie,” said Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

Special Assistant Attorney General Jason Knight said in a legal memorandum to the court that the hospital record would be important evidence in the case and that the results of the state police chemical test of Kobierowski’s breath “are so unusual and high that the state has an interest in obtaining information … to ensure that the truth is discovered and the interests of justice are satisfied.”

District Court Judge Frank J. Cenerini yesterday ordered the hospital to produce the record demanded in a Lynch subpoena previously approved by a judge. Kobierowski and the hospital had asked Cenerini to quash the subpoena, largely on the grounds that compliance would constitute an invasion of Kobierowski’s privacy.

Cenerini said the hospital readings will remain under seal in the case file pending further pretrial argument.

When Kobierowski was arrested, troopers used an Intoxilizer 5000 chemical breath-test machine to test his blood-alcohol level. The police said the reading was six times the legal limit; it is believed to be the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island on a machine of that kind.

There were two recorded readings — .489 and .491, compared to the legal limit of .08.

Jay Sullivan, traffic safety resource prosecutor for Lynch, agreed with the state police.

“That’s the highest we ever heard of,” Sullivan said later.

One alcohol-intoxication expert, James Harasymiw, director of Alcohol Detection Services in Big Bend, Wis., said there is a very severe risk of death for the average person with a reading that approaches .4.

That observation and the state police comments have brought the case widespread notoriety as media outlets around the world have published news items about it.

Kobierowski was not in court yesterday, but his lawyer, Richard James, remarked, “Stanley has as clean a [criminal and driving] record as anybody could have.”

James, who had said he would challenge the trustworthiness of the state police tests, said yesterday that he will explore with Lynch’s office the possibility of a plea bargain that would preclude the necessity of a trial.

Kobierowski, 34, of 29 Campbell Ave., North Providence, has pleaded innocent to two misdemeanors, drunken driving and resisting arrest, and is free on personal recognizance pending further court action.

In a police report, Kobierowski was quoted as having said that he drank two beers prior to the 2 p.m. start of his work shift as a chef at Downcity restaurant, that he had another beer at 10 p.m. at the restaurant bar, that he drank a full bottle of vodka with cranberry juice at home, and then got into his truck, intending to drive to Providence for a meeting with friends.

The police allege that they found inside his truck a backpack containing two cans of beer and a 20-ounce Gatorade bottle that contained an alcoholic beverage, and a plastic cup in the center console that contained an alcoholic beverage.

In allegedly resisting two troopers at the accident scene on Route 95 north in Providence, Kobierowski suffered a cut on his chin that required seven stitches in order to be closed at the hospital. While there, according to the police, he fought with hospital staff and had to be sedated so he could be treated.

gsmith@projo.com