Joseph Talbot was arrested after allegedly failing multiple field sobriety Tests and refusing to provide a breath sample, cops said.
An upstate New York man is said to have bought nearly 1,000 copies of a local newspaper in an attempt to keep his community from finding out he had received a DWI, officials said.
State Police responding on Thursday to calls of an erratic driver pulled over Joseph Talbot, 43, on SR-31 in Palmyra after he allegedly failed to keep right and unsafely moved from a lane, state troopers said.
Talbot was arrested after allegedly failing multiple Standardized Field Sobriety Tests and refusing to provide a breath sample, cops said.
Police said he also refused to be finger-printed and photographed because he did not wish to appear in the local paper.
“After his arrest, he called the trooper an a******, and said he didn’t want to be in that a****** rag, meaning our paper,” Ron Holdraker, the editor and owner of the Times of Wayne County, told InsideEdition.com. “We cover every arrest over a misdemeanor, and print the mugshots. We’ve done that for 28 years.”
Talbot was charged with DWI and with obstructing governmental administration in the second degree for failure to comply with the processing procedure, police said.
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He was arraigned and remanded to jail on $750 cash or $1,500 bond, which he made, and was back out of custody by the time the Times’ delivery went out on Saturday, Holdraker said.
“Our newsstand delivery guys go out at around 7:30 in the morning and start delivering the papers,” he said. “Well this guy started following them.”
A man matching Talbot’s description went on to buy nearly 1,000 copies of the paper that covered the incident and included his mugshot at $1.25 each, Holdraker said.
His alleged attempts to silence the story fell on deaf ears, as the paper, which has a circulation of 12,000, also published the account and updates reflecting the developments on its website, where the story was featured among its top stories Wednesday.
“Maybe 5,000 people hit the internet site a week. Yesterday I think we had 5,000,” he said.
Talbot was not known to the paper prior to his arrest and apparent attempts to buy up Saturday’s edition.
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“I never heard of the guy, except he boasted he was VP of a bank, a very important person,” Holdraker said.
A LinkedIn profile belonging to a man with the same name and image as Talbot lists him as a commercial insurance expert at First Niagara, specializing in insurance and risk management in manufacturing.
It appears Talbot's plan to keep himself out of the news have completely backfired.
“If he wanted to keep this quiet… we’re now getting calls from all over the United States about this,” Holdraker said. “This has happened before, where someone tries to stifle the news by buying up all the papers in town. This is easily the third or fourth time.”
Talbot is expected to appear in the Town of Palmyra Court at 7 p.m. February 1.
“We’ll be there,” Holdraker said, laughing.
A message left by InsideEdition.com for Talbot at a number listed for him was not immediately returned Wednesday.
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