New Brunswick City Councilwoman Charged With DWI After Crash

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — A New Brunswick city councilwoman was charged with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving and failure to show insurance after she got into a car crash March 8, according to New Brunswick Police.

The arrest of Suzanne Sicora-Ludwig, 56, is seen in New Brunswick Police body camera footage uploaded to this YouTube channel.

There is also police audio from Sicora-Ludwig in the hospital after the crash, where she was held in police custody. There, she is heard alternately saying she wants to call the prosecutor and the mayor, and then saying multiple times "I want to go home."

Sicora-Ludwig addressed the criminal charges against her at the most recent New Brunswick city council meeting last Wednesday:

"I cannot speak directly to the matters, which will be adjudicated in traffic court. Those matters will be addressed at the appropriate time," she said before the council. "Under the advice of legal counsel, I am not making any other statements or answering any other questions at this time."

According to a police report, the crash happened at 11:39 p.m. March 8 on Edgebrook Road near Tunison Lane in New Brunswick.

The police body camera footage shows an SUV, driven by Sicora-Ludwig, smashed head-on into a tree in a residential neighborhood. The impact of the crash caused the driver's side airbag to be deployed.

In the body-cam video, which appears edited, a police officer arrives on scene and asks:

"Are you the Councilwoman?"

Sicora-Ludwig is seen sitting in the driver's seat, holding her phone, and then standing outside the damaged SUV, wearing a winter coat and a scarf.

"I am the Council president," she replies. (Current records show she is a Councilwoman, not Council president.)

More police officers and EMTs arrive on the scene, with Sicora-Ludwig saying very little. The officers and EMTs strongly recommend she go to the hospital to be evaluated. She agrees to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, and she was loaded by stretcher into the ambulance.

"Are you usually that unsteady on your feet?" asks one female EMT. "You look like you're having trouble standing up."

Before she was taken to the RWJ-New Brunswick, another officer told her he needed to know "exactly what happened."

Sicora-Ludwig said she was coming home from dinner, and she swerved because she saw an animal run across the road.

An unnamed officer is then heard in the video telling a superior officer "she smells like alcohol, acting very confused, she didn't seem oriented, she couldn't tell me where she was."

Her registration was also expired, a police officer said. She also failed to show any insurance information to police, say officers.

Erratic Hospital Audio

The body camera footage then cuts to the hospital, where it is audio only.

There, police inform Sicora-Ludwig she is being held in police custody due to the fact that police "believe (she) was ingesting alcohol prior to the accident."

Sicora-Ludwig then says she wants a lawyer.

"I just want to go home," she says multiple times. She also asked if the police and nurses treating her "are New Brunswick people."

The police officer tells her "I would not want to steer you wrong. I think you've done a lot, helped out a lot. I've never had a bad interaction with you."

Police can be heard saying Sicora-Ludwig signed a consent form for her blood to be drawn, but she then refused to have her blood drawn when a nurse attempted to do so. A police officer returns with a warrant from a judge to draw her blood.

Sicora-Ludwig then brought up the political affiliation of the judge.

"All the crimes that go on, and there's a warrant against me," she said.

Also while being detained at the hospital, she said she wanted to call the Middlesex County prosecutor, the New Brunswick municipal attorney and New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill. She also wanted to know "the name of the officer who brought me in."

Sicora-Ludwig, a longtime New Brunswick resident, was first elected to the city council in 2017, and she did serve a term as Council president, although she is not currently. She is a Democrat. She is the widow of Keith Ludwig, who was a firefighter and EMT for the city of New Brunswick for 23 years, until his death in a snowmobiling accident in 2008.