Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann arrested for driving under the influence

Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann mugshot. Image via Collier County Jail.

Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann has been arrested for driving drunk.

Collier County Jail records show the 61-year-old city leader was booked on a charge of driving under the influence. Booking sheets showed the Mayor had a blood alcohol level greater than 0.15 and was driving with a child under the age of 18 in her vehicle.

NBC-2 News reports that Naples Police received a call around 9:51 p.m. on Wednesday saying a driver had stopped her silver vehicle on the grass in front of a home at 16th Avenue and 3rd Street. The caller said the woman claimed to be the Mayor and appeared drunk.

Heitmann was released Thursday on $500 bond.

A police report shows Heitmann was found at the scene leaning over her Porsche, according to the Naples Daily News. A police sergeant reported that he could “immediately smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage” and that the Mayor had “glassy, watery eyes.”

Heitmann told police that another car nearly hit her in a roundabout. That car belonged to the residents of the home where she eventually drove her own vehicle.

Police conducted field sobriety tests on Heitmann, including asking her to follow a pen with her eyes, but she failed those tests. She then blew into a breathalyzer, which showed her blood alcohol content level above 0.155. Florida’s legal limit to drive is a blood alcohol level of 0.08.

Heitmann earlier this year won re-election to a second term as Mayor by a recount-thin margin of 22 votes over challenger Gary Price. Heitmann won the March city race with 3,269 votes to Price’s 3,247. Third-place candidate Ted Blankenship received 2,049 votes.

That came four years after she unseated former Mayor Bill Barnett.

The Mayor previously served two terms on the Naples City Council. She ran on a platform of preserving the tony coastal town’s small-town character.