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  • Anne Stensrud, who anchored a KEYC TV newscast late last year in what appeared to be a drunken state, was charged formally with a DWI for a driving incident on Highway 14.

    Stensrud, Annie.jpg

January 30, 2012

TV anchor formally charged with DWI

By Dan Nienaber Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO —  

A KEYC anchor who was arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated two weeks after what some suspected was a drunken newscast has been charged.

Anne Caroline Stensrud, 28, of North Mankato has been charged with one gross misdemeanor count and two misdemeanor counts of drunken driving. She is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Feb. 28.

After Stensrud was arrested and placed into the detoxification center in New Ulm, court filings used to get her out of the center before a 72-hour hold had ended said Stensrud had a blood-alcohol concentration of .23 when she entered the facility. A urine test taken just over an hour after Stensrud was arrested showed she had a BAC of .31 at that time, nearly four times the legal limit for driving of .08, the criminal complaint said.

Stensrud was stopped on Highway 14 just before noon on Dec. 21 after police received an anonymous tip that a woman was drunken driving in North Mankato. The vehicle Stensrud was allegedly driving was first spotted by a Nicollet County sheriff’s deputy on Roe Crest Drive.

The deputy and North Mankato Police Chief Chris Boyer followed the car on LorRay Drive before it traveled down the on ramp on to Highway 14’s eastbound lanes.

Boyer, who was in an unmarked police car, had the deputy take over the arrest. The deputy reported that Stensrud couldn’t stand up without holding on to her door and attempted to drive away after refusing to do sobriety tests.

Two weeks before her arrest, a video of Stensrud stammering through a Sunday night newscast caught national attention. The video was highlighted for a David Letterman skit called “Top 10 Signs Your Local Newscaster is Drunk.”

The news station said Stensrud wasn’t intoxicated and explained her performance by saying she was having a bad reaction to medications.

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