Cops: Man evaded interlock device, arrested

A Ridge man stopped for a safety inspection on the Long Island Expressway was cited for unsecured hazardous materials and arrested Thursday when police discovered he had circumvented a device designed to ensure that he did not drive drunk, police said.

Edgar Rivera, 51, of 144 Ridge Rd., who had a prior conviction for drunken driving, was charged with circumventing a court-ordered interlocking device, a misdemeanor. He was also issued a summons for transporting unsecured tanks of acetylene and oxygen.

The police Motor Carrier Safety Section was conducting a commercial vehicle safety inspection at the weigh-in station at Exit 66 on the Long Island Expressway in Yaphank about 3:25 p.m., police said, when Rivera's two-axle dump truck was stopped and checked.

Officers inspected Rivera's driver's license, and determined that the truck he was driving did not have an operating interlocking device on it that would have tested Rivera's blood alcohol level through his breath, police said. The device, imposed on him after the prior drunken driving conviction, would have mechanically prevented him from starting the truck if he had been drinking.

Rivera was taken into custody by police and held overnight for arraignment in First District Court Friday.