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Driver again pulled over

She's charged with new DUI

Only weeks after suffering an apparent overdose while awaiting trial for driving on drugs, a Butler woman was arrested again for drugged driving.

State police pulled over 50-year-old Dawn S. Finucan just after 1 a.m. Thursday after they spotted her car cross the white fog line on Route 8 in Butler.

Finucan, who appeared impaired, failed both field sobriety tests and a drug recognition expert’s evaluation, police said.

A search of her car — a rental vehicle — turned up a crack pipe, according to court documents.

She was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital for a blood test. Toxicology reports are pending.

Police, however, didn’t wait for the results. They immediately charged her with driving under the influence of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and three traffic violations.

District Judge Wayne Seibel arraigned her on the charges and placed her in the Butler County Prison on $15,000 bail.

The relatively high bail for a DUI case, he said, was because authorities had advised him that she had violated her probation in connection with a drugged driving arrest in December.

In that previous case, which is pending in Butler County Court, Finucan is accused of crashing into another vehicle Dec. 3 in the 800 block of Mercer Road in Center Township, and driving away.

The suspect was later found and given a blood test, which showed that she had multiple drugs in her system, police said.

She is charged with DUI, accidents involving injury, hit-and-run and numerous traffic violations.

Finucan, meanwhile, is awaiting a preliminary hearing May 15 in an unrelated case stemming from a suspected overdose last month at her home on First Street.

An anonymous 911 call about 10:55 p.m. April 7 sent Butler police to her apartment for an unknown problem there. Officers found the door open and went upstairs.

Finucan was found unconscious with her head on a coffee table, according to court documents. Emergency crews used the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan to revive her. She refused further medical treatment.

While at the apartment, documents said, police noticed three empty stamp bags of suspected heroin, two drug-cooking spoons and a crack pipe.

She is charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.

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