Brick Man Arrested After Asking Undercover Cop to Help Fool Interlock Device

A Brick man and a South Amboy woman were arrested for allegedly asking an undercover Point Pleasant Beach police sergeant to take a sobriety test for the man.

Leon Davis Jr., 24, and Jacquelin Pearson, 29, were charged with tampering with an interlock device, a disorderly person's offense, at 1:18 a.m. Saturday at Arnold and Baltimore avenues, said Detective Patrick Petruzziello.

Davis had apparently, in the past, been found guilty of drunken driving and was ordered by a judge to install the ignition interlock device in his car and only drive after he blows into the device, which tests for sobriety, Petruzziello said.

The car will not start until the test has been successfully completed, he explained. When the device is installed, the driver must breathe into it to measure the driver’s blood-alcohol level. If the blood-alcohol content registers a certain level, the car will not start.

Apparently, Davis must have had a concern about successful completion because he and Pearson asked undercover Sgt. William Ippolito to do it for them, Petruzziello said.

"This is the first one of these we've ever had," Petruzziello added.

Pearson made a point of getting Ippolito's attention, he said.

"She didn't realize he was a police officer and explained to him that they had been drinking," Petruzziello said.

Then she and Davis asked him to take the test for Davis and explained how the device works, he said.

That's when Ippolito identified himself as an officer, arrested both of them and released them on their own recognizance.