Woman With Infant in Car Charged With Her 9th OWI

A 28-year-old Milwaukee woman is facing her ninth drunk driving charge after she hit a car and a median while driving on Highway 41 near Wauwatosa with her 11-month-old daughter in the back seat.

Evelynn M. Brown was charged Tuesday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with one count of ninth-offense operating while intoxicated. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison and $50,000 in fines.

According to the criminal complaint:

At 10:57 p.m. Friday, a man called the after seeing Brown driving northbound on Miller Park Way near Canal Street, where she veered out of her lane, struck a median, drove across some grass for 50 feet, then veered across all four lanes of traffic and hit some construction barrels.

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Brown continued northbound on Highway 41 before exiting at Lloyd Street, where she stopped her car on the exit ramp after hitting another car.

When deputies arrived, they found a man assisting Brown who said she had sideswiped his car. He told them that after they stopped, he noticed she was drunk and that there was a young child in the back of the car.

He said he got Brown out of the vehicle, then moved it to the side of the off-ramp.

Brown was crying and making incoherent remarks when the deputy spoke to her, and she smelled of alcohol. The deputy determined the 11-month-old in the back of the car was in fact Brown’s child.

Brown was arrested for drunken driving and taken in for a blood test.

Brown was previously convicted of drunk driving in 2000, 2001, 2002, four times in 2005 and once in 2008.

The complaint states the 2000 conviction was for negligent homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, stemming from a 1999 event; however, Patch was unable to find specific court records about that event.

Given her Aug. 8, 1983, date of birth, a 1999 incident could well be shrouded in closed juvenile records.

A review of her court record shows several additional charges of operating while intoxicated that were dismissed on prosecutors' motions, and one case in 2004 in which she pleaded guilty to felony eluding an officer, while 24 charges of bail jumping were dismissed at the prosecutor's request.

According to court records of Brown’s last conviction in 2008, she was sentenced by Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas P. Donegan in March of that year to two years in prison and three years of extended supervision.

She’s currently being held in Milwaukee County Jail on $30,000 bond while awaiting trial.