Marijuana, alcohol lead to impeachment articles for SGA senator

SGA Freshman Senator Matthew Wirth faces an impeachment hearing after his arrest on Oct. 7 for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana and alcohol possession under 21 years of age

A little over a month after the impeachment hearing of SGA Vice President Ross Sheppard, new impeachment articles were filed for another member of the organization at the SGA weekly meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 2.

Milledgeville Police Department

SGA freshman Senator Matthew Wirth was arrested on Oct. 7 by the GC Department of Public Safety on charges of misdemeanor possession of marijuana and alcohol possession under 21 years of age, according to the incident report.

SGA freshman Senator Matthew Wirth was charged with possession of an ounce or less of marijuana and alcohol possession under 21 years old after an arrest on Oct. 7, according to the Georgia College Department of Public Safety significant incident report.

After observing a silver Hyundai with headlights on and fogged windows parked in the Centennial Parking Lot, Sgt. Michael Baker approached the car, according to the incident report.

Once Baker came in contact with the four students, Matthew Corbin, Daniel Diaz, Conner Salter and Matthew Wirth, he detected an odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle the four were occupying.

The four denied any knowledge of the odor coming from the vehicle and furthermore denied the use of marijuana, according to the incident report.

After a thorough search of the vehicle and the four students, with assistance from Sgt. Hicks and Officer Denna, several items were found.

These items included: a pill bottle containing suspected marijuana, a smoking device, a grinder with suspected marijuana residue, two glass smoking devices containing suspected marijuana, a water bong smoking device, a small plastic bag of suspected marijuana and several small empty plastic bags and a glass mason jar.

All contraband was placed into evidence and suspected for the use of marijuana, according to the incident report.

While Sgt. Baker spoke with Salter, he admitted that everyone in the vehicle was underage and had been smoking marijuana as well as drinking earlier in the night, according to the incident report.

Wirth denied drinking and voluntarily provided a breath sample on the Alco-Sensor, which tested positive for alcohol, according to the incident report.

Wirth, Diaz and Corbin were placed under arrest and transported to the Milledgeville Police Department where they were charged with underage possession of alcohol and a misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

SGA President Evan Karanovich expressed that although it is unfortunate this happened, it is a time for the senate to discuss what is right and wrong and that is what the impeachment process sets out to do.

“We hate that we have to police ourselves, but it’s a necessary thing in order to preserve the integrity of what we do,” Karonovich said.  “We need to address it and that’s what the senate will be doing.”

These are the second impeachment articles to be filed this semester in SGA. The first articles were filed in response to Sheppard’s DUI arrest.

SGA Attorney General Andrew Whitaker will serve as prosecution at the impeachment hearing, as he did in the hearing involving Sheppard.

“My only hope is that people treat this case as separate from Ross’ and that they don’t use precedent because there is no precedent,” Whitaker said. “You take it individually, and I hope that the senators consider this case independently from what transpired with Ross. That’s my only hope for the situation, but we’ll see.”

A motion, submitted by the Senate Rules and Oversight Committee and drafted by President Pro Tempore Maxwell Pichan and seconded by senior Senator Gordon Thomas, was announced to the senate body at the meeting on Nov. 2 and sent to floor for a vote.

The motion passed and SGA will move into a special session early next week to hear the case on Wirth.

Wirth declined to comment.

**The process for impeachment and guidelines for SGA member conduct can be found on SGA’s website in their constitution and bylaws. Those can be found here.**

Posted by Lauren Davidson on Nov 2 2011. Filed under Lead stories, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.