DWI HIT PARADE: RUSSELLS BAR EXPRESS SIDELINED AT MAIN GATE OF PAX RIVER NAS BY DWI ARREST OF ST. MARY’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATTORNEY SUJA M. VARGHESE

DWI HIT PARADE: RUSSELLS BAR EXPRESS SIDELINED AT MAIN GATE BY DWI ARREST OF ST. MARY’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATTORNEY SUJA M. VARGHESE

BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

VALLEY LEE, MD. – It was Wednesday night, Dec. 11, 2024, at Betty Russell’s Bar in Valley Lee, a traditional bar and roadhouse, as well as a country store for over one hundred and ten years, when a crowd gathered a week before the winter solstice. Known for its famous stuffed ham, stiff drinks, and cold beer on tap, the bar also features pool and dart leagues. The bar is one of about a dozen neighborhood bars in St. Mary’s County catering to nearby residents and those participating in competitive pool, horseshoe, and dart leagues.
St. Mary’s Public Schools General Counsel Suja M. Varghese, who has been the county school system’s attorney for four years, attended that night.

A Freedom of Information Act Request obtained by THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY reveals that Varghese explained to a Naval District Washington Police Officer assigned to the Patuxent River Naval Station that she was dropping off a couple of sailors she met at Russell’s Bar who were stranded without a ride as she drove her 2023 Nissan Pathfinder SUV to Gate One at Buse Road when she was stopped at 1:10 a.m. on Dec. 12, 2024.

Varghese, who lives only a few miles from the neighborhood bar, took pity on the sailors and, like many in St. Mary’s County who have often shown hospitality to those who serve the nation, decided to give them a lift back to PAX RIVER NAS – about seven miles in the wrong direction from her home. Her decision to do her fellow pool players a favor was made despite her intoxication and led her on a trail for several hours from Pax River to the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department in Leonardtown for a blood alcohol test and back to Pax River, including being in handcuffs and arrested for DWI.
Traffic citations and DUI arrests on federal property are processed in the U.S. District Court of Maryland. As an experienced attorney and well-versed in the law, she opted out of calling an Uber and got behind the wheel of her SUV, and now she faces sanctions in Federal Court.
Uber’s platform shows that a ride from Betty Russell’s Bar to the main gate of Pax River NAS would have cost the sailors between $21 and $25. However, a check at 11:30 p.m. on February 20, 2025, revealed that none were available, and likely that could have been the case on December 11, 2024.
The arresting officer wrote on the citation charging Varghese with driving while under the influence that he made contact with the driver, identified by her Maryland driver’s license. The driver stated she was dropping off two sailors from the bar who were unable to find a ride back to the base. The officer states that Varghese did not have base access or affiliation with the base.
While speaking with Varghese, the officer observed slurred speech, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emanating from her person, and bloodshot, glassy eyes. The officer requested Varghese’s registration card, and while she was searching for it in her vehicle, he continued speaking with her and asked her several questions.
“Suja Varghese stopped looking for the registration to answer the questions and carried on the conversation and demonstrated that she was unable to complete divided attention tasks. Suja Varghese stopped approximately 3 times and had to receive additional task direction. Suja Varghese stated she was at Russell’s Bar in Callaway (Valley Lee) for pool league and admitted she had consumed 3 beers and one shot.”
The officer instructed Varghese to put her vehicle in park, turn the vehicle off, and put the keys on the dash. Varghese was unsteady on her feet and had to lean against her vehicle to keep from falling while walking to the rear of the vehicle. The field sobriety tests took note of her pupil size and lack of smooth pursuit in both eyes and sustained nystagmus of maximum deviation in both eyes, all indicators of intoxication. The walk and turn and one-legged stand results added up to the officer deciding it was time to put her in handcuffs and inform the attorney she was under arrest for driving while intoxicated on the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
After securing Varghese in his police car, the officer reported that PJ’s Towing was summoned by the Naval District Washington Emergency Communications to tow her vehicle after a search was conducted for any items of value. The citation notes that no items of value were discovered nor were any additional items of evidence.
After a twenty-minute drive to Leonardtown for the BAC test, a reading of .20 and .19 was revealed, nearly three times the legal limit to drive. This meant Varghese was putting at risk not only the sailors she was transporting but also anyone else traveling on her route from Valley Lee to Pax River.
Varghese was returned to Pax River, where her driver’s permit was confiscated to be returned to the Motor Vehicle Administration. She was released to a family friend at about four o’clock in the morning.
Several school board members and St. Mary’s School Superintendent Scott Smith have been asked for comments on the arrest of the general counsel for the public schools. The IT director for the public school system, David Howard, has been arrested twice for DWI. Varghese may have a prior DWI arrest.  

While Varghese may be the first school system attorney charged with DWI, a former St. Mary’s County Alcoholic Beverage Board attorney, Michael Davis, was cited for DWI after he crashed on Rt. 5 after he left the annual booze fest held at the Governors Cup in St. Mary’s City. 

Charles County Sheriff Deputy Squirewell charged Charles County Commissioner President Reuben B. Collins II with DUI on January 30, 2014, when he was found under the influence in the area of St. Charles Parkway and Billingsly Road after leaving his law office. Collins was given probation before Judgment in a plea deal and fined $202.50. Collins publicly apologized for his actions.

Prince George’s County Council Member Jamel Ramon “Mel” Franklin was charged on November 21, 2016, with DWI when he crashed a county-owned Ford Explorer into the rear end of a vehicle stopped at a traffic light on Rt. 4 at Dower House Road.

Delegate “Jay” Jewell Jacobia Walker of Prince George’s County was arrested for DWI when he was stopped on Rt. 301 in front of the Tinder Box Lounge on March 1, 2020, by Charles County Sheriff Officer Brandon Foster.

Maryland House of Delegates Minority Leader Jason Buckel was charged with DWI on June 1, 2024. Maryland House of Delegates Majority Leader Kumar Barve, now a Maryland Public Service Commission Member, entered a guilty plea to DWI after being arrested on Nov. 29, 2007.

Betty Russell’s Bar is mandated by the law not to serve intoxicated people, but there really aren’t any teeth in the law. Enforcement of local alcoholic beverage laws generally centers on whether or not a person who presents themselves to purchase liquor at package stores, bars, and restaurants has legal identification to prove their age and ability to legally purchase booze.  

Those who fail to plan for a ride home from a night out of boozing and then decide to join you on the public highways have little to fear from being arrested if they have ten grand to hire attorneys with talent enough to get them off with a verdict of probation before judgment. In some cases, a sharp legal eagle can spot a flaw in the arrest process and get the DWI charges tossed. Some of the more focused DUI attorneys even take specialized courses of instruction in busting up DUI charges and advertise their soulless talents in online ads that pop up in the algorithm next to advertisements for bars and nightclubs.  

 

Yelping shysters then pose their deep-seated concern for the constitutional rights of the accused in their ads when it is indisputable that they are likely motivated primarily to attract clients able to afford them and maintain a comfortable lifestyle. 

Much progress has been made since 1990, when the original DWI HIT PARADE began in ST. MARY’S TODAY and continues now in THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY.  The annual fatalities due to drunk driving and driving while impaired by drugs have fallen.  The laws changing to allow legal use of drugs and the subsequent amount of drug-impaired driving will likely provide more death and despair. 

Suja M. Varghese will find a DUI attorney who is accomplished in representing clients in federal court. That barrister may find a hole in the arrest, or an assistant United States Attorney who could care less about another DWI case from Pax River and dump the charge. In any event, Varghese appears to be a nice person who has spent more than twenty years working in Baltimore County and satisfactorily serves the St. Mary’s School Board. 

While the term “transparency” is bandied about by politicians and the school system, don’t think for one minute that any transparency exists when it comes to the public school system and its top staff when arrested for driving while intoxicated.

FUTURE ARTICLES WILL EXPLORE THE ROLE OF DUI ATTORNEYS, THE COURTS, STATE’S ATTORNEYS, AND ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE BOARDS AND HOW EACH AFFECTS THE ISSUE OF DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED FATALITIES

 

LEXINGTON PARK ATTORNEY NIVEA AAMAIRA OHRI, WHO SPECIALIZES IN REPRESENTING DUI DRIVERS, NEEDED A GREAT DUI ATTORNEY.

Nivea Aamaira Ohri of 329 Buckeye Circle, LaPlata, Md (DOB 02/1996) hired the very successful DWI attorney Hammad Shaikh Matin, also of LaPlata, to be her attorney when she was busted for DUI, perhaps because either no one from her law firm was competent to win a good outcome for her or they were all too disgusted that she failed to call Uber and ended up in the drunk tank at the Hotel St. Mary’s to stand up for her in court.  Out and about after the bewitching hour of midnight on August 20, 2022, Trooper Greathouse spotted her southbound on Rt. 235 north of Wildewood Blvd in St. Mary’s County, operating a 2020 Toyota truck.

 In a plea deal on October 20, 2022, with St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Richard Fritz, to whom Matin donated $4,000 for his losing reelection campaign in 2022, Ohri entered a guilty plea to negligent driving in a careless and imprudent manner endangering property, life, and person. The verdict was Probation Before Judgement with no time and no fine. Matin is a quality DUI attorney and greases the skids for his clients by making generous contributions to the election campaigns of the prosecutors in St. Mary’s, Charles, Calvert, and Queen Anne’s counties. Matin also ensures success in the courtroom by contributing to the election campaigns of circuit court judges in the 7^th Judicial Circuit in which most of his practice is concentrated.

THE ARREST RECORD, INCLUSIVE OF NIVEA AAMAIRA OHRI

Issued by the Maryland State Police.

The court records for Ohri’s DWI record on a Maryland online case search failed to reveal the outcome of her DWI records.  When a competent DWI attorney like Matin manages to dump a case filed against his client, he can then file a motion to expunge the record. Still, the resulting judicial fiction doesn’t change the reality that Ohri was arrested for DWI or that she entered a guilty plea to dangerously driving her pickup truck.

Attorney Nivea Ohri of the Lexington Park second-generation legal powerhouse of Baldwin, Briscoe, and Steinmetz represented Karla M. Haizlip (DOB 08/25/1996) of 47122 Schwartzkopf Drive in Lexington Park, Md., following her arrest for DWI by St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department Deputy J. Reppel on August 11, 2024, at 1:50 am as she operated a 2019 Jeep on the same street where she lives. In a plea deal with St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling, she was given a Stet Docket verdict before District Court Judge Christy Chesser with no time and no fine. On the charge of failing to remain at the scene of a collision, she entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to sixty days in the slammer with all of the jail time suspended and zero fine.  That must have hurt.  Haizlip will have to visit a probation officer regularly for two years.

Attorney Nivea Ohri signed up to be the mouthpiece for Susana Kravetz Busitzky following her arrest by St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department Deputy K. Fleenor on October 2, 2022, at 10:39 pm.  Busitzky (DOB 04/29/1962) of 21349 Primrose Place, Lexington Park, Md., was operating a 2015 Jaguar on FDR Blvd and Chancellors Run Road when she was stopped and awarded her ticket to court. Busitzky entered a guilty plea to Driving while impaired by alcohol and, in a plea deal with State’s Attorney Richard Fritz, was sentenced to sixty days in the slammer with all sixty days suspended and zero fine. Even after receiving such favorable treatment for a DWI in which she pleaded guilty, Busitzky had her attorney file for a reconsideration of her case, perhaps due to not wishing to have the DWI on her record or to park her Jag in the parking lot of the District Court building to visit her probation officer.