Michele Griffin is placed in cuffs by Galloway police
A leader of Atlantic City’s re-entry program admitted to drinking before driving to a crash involving her son, video obtained by BreakingAC shows.
“Yes, I had been having a little couple cocktails,” Michele Griffin tells a Galloway Township police sergeant at one point. “I was home.”
But Griffin insists she is not drunk, even as Officer Cassidy Walsh handcuffed her following a failed field sobriety test.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small would not comment on the arrest or if it would affect Griffin’s employment.
Body-worn camera footage from the June 1 incident was obtained by BreakingAC through an Open Public Records Act request.
Griffin, 44, who lives in the township, was not involved in the initial crash.
She was home drinking Hennessy when she got a call from her son, Jeffery Callaway, according to what she told police.
Callaway, 20, flipped his white Kia after striking a parked car on Buchanan Avenue in the township at about 10:40 p.m.
Jeffery Callaway's overturned vehicle.With the car on its roof, Callaway told police he was able to grab his phone and crawl out before calling his mother.
Griffin — who said she only lives around the corner — came and picked her son up, driving him back home before driving back to the scene.
Sgt. First Class Vincent Ceci asked why she would leave only to come back.
“You knew you were drinking,” he tells Griffin. “You came here and then you left and then you came back. So you drove three times.”
“It don’t matter,” she replies.
“It does because you’re driving drunk,” he says.
Callaway would later explain that his mother picked him up but that they were worried about her car having a light out, so they drove home to park with the intention of walking back to the scene.
He walked back but then saw his mother drive up.
Griffin said she planned to walk back too, but “because of my asthma, I said f--- it, I’m gonna drive back,” she told Ceci.
“While you were drinking,” he replied.
“I wasn’t drinking like that,” she said.
“You’re drunk,” Ceci said.
“I’m not drunk,” she said.
“You’re quite drunk,” he told her.
“I’m not drunk,” she replied as she started to walk away.
She would later say she drove back because she had just gotten out of the hospital 14 days earlier with congestive heart failure.
Both mother and son would undergo field sobriety tests.
Sgt. Ron Gorneau noted there was a good amount of marijuana in Callaway’s overturned car, and asked when the last time he smoked was.
“Yesterday,” Callaway told him. “I’m going to be honest with you.”
Gorneau then said he just wanted to make sure Callaway wasn’t impaired. The sergeant quickly cleared him.
Griffin was later told she needed to be tested since she drove to the scene.
She said she would pass a test.
Michele Griffin undergoes a field sobriety test.“I ain’t that drunk,” Griffin said. “Hell no.”
But Walsh would determine otherwise.
“I’m on federal parole,” Griffin said as she was being handcuffed.
Her car had to be towed from the scene under John’s Law, the officers explained to her and her son.
Before the car was towed, it was searched. Video shows an officer find a red solo cup he sniffs, and indicates smells of rum.
Meanwhile, Griffin was driven to the State Police barracks to be processed.
“How the f--- did I get into this?” Griffin is heard saying in the back of the patrol car.
Once at the barracks, Griffin expresses regret that she went to her son’s aid.
“I should have left that dumb mother (expletive) around the corner,” she said.
No video of a breath test is shown. But Griffin’s pending citations include a refusal to submit.
Griffin was was sentenced to 366 days in federal prison in June 2022, after admitting that she filed 19 false tax returns on behalf of six clients while working as a tax preparer in Galloway Township. She was ordered to repay restitution of $135,063.
She was released Dec. 5 of last year, and hired 28 days later.
