Driver arrested en route to court

Hours after he was booked into the Spokane County Jail, Jon Ryan Molter sat in the visiting room and admitted to his visitor that he had “stopped being sober.”

Molter, a 44-year-old Tacoma resident who is formerly from Spokane, was taken to the jail before 6 a.m. Monday after Spokane Police Officer Gene Baldwin found him sleeping in a car with the engine running on the 6300 block of East Rutter. Baldwin also found a can of Keystone Ice beer tucked between Molter’s legs and several empty cans on the floorboard.

Molter had been on his way to Coeur d’Alene to appear in court for a drunken driving charge. He never made it.

According to a police report, Baldwin asked Molter to perform several standard field sobriety tests Monday.

He refused most of them but agreed to take a breath test, in which he blew a .20 and a .189, more than twice the legal level of intoxication.

The rental car he was driving was turned over to a representative from Avis Rent-A-Car.

Molter was booked into jail for being in physical control of a vehicle while under the influence. He said Monday evening that he had not been given a chance to pay the $500 bail or call the Idaho court to explain his absence.

Molter said he was charged with DUI in Coeur d’Alene last St. Patrick’s Day.

He said he’s been to “treatment places” since then and is a longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Family problems and illness triggered his most recent drinking.