Charges Filed In Oxley Case

INDIANAPOLIS -- Charges were filed Wednesday against former state representative and one-time gubernatorial candidate Dennie Oxley II following a June 26 incident in which police and prosecutors said he claimed immunity from arrest.

Oxley was charged with misdemeanor counts of public intoxication and impersonating a public official.

Oxley was seen on surveillance camera at a downtown Indianapolis gas station, where he and Kristin Dowlut, 21, a House intern, had been dropped off by a cab.

Dowlut was extremely intoxicated, had passed out and was lying face-down on the ground in the gas station's parking lot, police said, which prompted a call to 911 and led officers to the scene.

Police said when officers arrived, Oxley -- who was also heavily intoxicated -- tried to sneak away down an alley and that when they tried to arrest him for public intoxication, Oxley told them he is a state legislator and couldn't be arrested. Police said he also possessed legislative identification.

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said the charges Oxley faces pale in comparison to the public ridicule he has and will endure because of the charges.

"He's endured far more publicly than the sanction that goes along with this," Brizzi said.

Dowlut has not been able to help in the investigation, largely because she doesn't remember most of the events of the evening.

"She has no recollection of even getting in the cab," Brizzi said. "She was on the ground ... for at least 10-15 minutes."

When Oxley ran for lieutenant governor in 2008, he stepped down from his seat in the Statehouse -- a seat now occupied by his father.

Oxley was expected to turn himself in Wednesday afternoon, but there was no official word as of 7 p.m. He was also arrested on a drunken driving charge in February 2009 in southern Indiana. That case is still pending.

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