A Sumter County sheriff’s deputy directing traffic after a Saturday night church service apprehended a man suspected of driving impaired.
Deputy Chris Rafferty was directing traffic shortly after 7 p.m. at St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church on County Road 462 when he saw a vehicle that had stopped in traffic. The deputy attempted to wave the vehicle through traffic, but the car didn’t budge. As the deputy approached the vehicle, he found the driver, later identified as 59-year-old Steven Keith Ingrassia of Wildwood, was asleep, according to an arrest report. Ingrassia suddenly woke up and drove away, but the deputy observed that Ingrassia’s eyelids were droopy and he followed him to the Marathon service station at Pinellas Plaza in The Villages.
Ingrassia denied he had fallen asleep. A search of his vehicle turned up a pill bottle containing 12 Temazepam, one Oxycodone/Acetaminopen, and 1.5 Diazepams, for which Ingrassia appeared to have prescriptions.
He struggled through field sobriety exercises and refused to provide a urine sample.
Ingrassia had been arrested last week on charges of stealing bottles of liquor from Publix at Lake Deaton Plaza. In 2006, Ingrassia had been convicted on a charge of DUI in Broward County.
He was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and refusal to submit to testing.
He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on $3,000 bond.
