Breaking news out of Las Vegas — prosecutors have officially charged Democratic State Senator Edgar Flores with DUI, more than a month after police found him passed out behind the wheel at a traffic light. The charge comes after blood tests confirmed what many suspected all along.
The Charge Is Official
Prosecutors have formally filed a DUI charge against the Democratic Nevada state senator more than six weeks after Las Vegas police said they found him asleep behind the wheel. This isn’t just an arrest anymore. It’s an official criminal charge.
The delay in charging him was normal procedure — prosecutors were waiting for blood test results. Well, those results are in, and they don’t look good for the senator. The first blood sample, obtained four hours after his arrest at 7:35 a.m., showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.082 — above Nevada’s legal limit of 0.08.
Prosecutors filed the misdemeanor DUI charge on October 16. The senator is due in court January 12th.
What Police Found That Night
Let’s be clear about what happened September 12th. Metro police arrested State Sen. Edgar Flores, 39, around 3:30 a.m. near the intersection of Lamb and Lake Mead boulevards. This wasn’t a simple traffic stop.
Body camera footage shows the officer said the subject was “passed out in the vehicle” with the SUV in drive and Flores’ foot on the brake. Officers had to knock on his window repeatedly to wake him up. When they finally got him conscious, Flores told police he drank a 24-ounce beer earlier that night.
The officers knew they had a high-profile case on their hands. “I don’t know if you heard, but he’s a Nevada state senator, so let’s make sure we run him through all the tests,” one officer tells another as they process Flores. They did everything by the book.
The Campaign’s Spin Machine
Here’s where your blood pressure might rise a bit. Instead of just hiring a lawyer like any normal person would, Flores had his campaign team jump in with some pretty wild claims.
His campaign claimed:
“The breathalyzer confirmed a 0.00 BAC, and we are confident the blood test will confirm the same.”
Well, that aged like milk in the desert sun. The blood test showed he was over the legal limit.
But here’s the kicker — According to LVMPD, Flores denied the preliminary breath test at the traffic stop location. The only breathalyzer test he took was administered at 2:46 p.m., almost 12 hours after the initial traffic stop.
Any high school biology student knows alcohol leaves your system over time. Testing clean 12 hours later means absolutely nothing about what was in your system when you were driving.
Even worse, the campaign statement says:
“Our campaign is also reviewing whether his rights and privacy were properly respected.”
Let that sink in. A political campaign is investigating police officers for doing their job.
Why This Should Make Your Blood Boil
This case is everything wrong with how political elites operate. When regular folks get DUI charges, they don’t have campaign teams making up stories about breathalyzer tests. They don’t investigate the cops who arrested them. They hire a lawyer with their own money and face the consequences.
But apparently when you’re a state senator, your campaign donors get to pay for your legal defense strategy. Those people wrote checks thinking they were supporting political activities, not funding investigations into law enforcement officers who were just doing their job.
The “Just Tired” Excuse
Flores wants everyone to believe he was just exhausted:
“I am not suggesting that anybody should be driving that tired. It was 100% my fault,” Flores said. “I was just way too tired.”
Come on. We’ve all been tired. But there’s tired, and then there’s being so unconscious at a traffic light that police have to pound on your window to wake you up. And tired doesn’t make your blood alcohol level go over the legal limit.
The Irony Is Rich
Last legislative session, Flores, along with all his state senate colleagues except one, voted to pass increased DUI penalties for second-time offenders. He voted to get tougher on drunk drivers. Now he is one.
The charge carries a potential jail sentence of 2-180 days, though the law states that the time can be served through community service. First-time offenders rarely see jail in Nevada. We’ll see if that applies to senators too.
What Needs to Happen Now
First, no special treatment. Flores should face the same consequences any other Nevada citizen would face for driving over the legal limit. No backroom deals, no sealed records, no mysterious dismissals.
Second, campaign finance watchdogs need to look into whether campaign funds are being used for personal legal matters. If donors’ money is going toward investigating police officers over a personal DUI, that’s something voters deserve to know about.
Third, remember this at election time. Flores was first elected to the Nevada Assembly in 2014 and to the Nevada Senate in 2022. He plans to run again in 2026. Voters get to decide if they want representatives who take responsibility or ones who use their campaign apparatus as a personal defense team.
The charge is filed. The blood test results are in. Now we get to see if justice really is blind, or if being a state senator means playing by different rules. Based on what we’ve seen so far, don’t hold your breath for equal treatment under the law.
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