41 DUI arrests made by Tennessee trooper tossed — with over half of the cases involving sober drivers, report says

Local defense attorneys have raised concerns over enforcement practice, according to the report

Forty-one DUI arrests made by a single Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper in Bedford County have been dismissed by prosecutors, an investigative report shows, with more than half involving drivers later found to be sober.

The dismissals stem from arrests made between 2021 and 2024 by former Trooper Asa Pearl, according to records obtained by WSMV4.

Of those 41 cases, a Bedford County District Attorney’s office spreadsheet shows that 22 incidents involving drivers who either had no drugs or alcohol in their system or whose blood alcohol was within legal limits at the time of testing, the local news outlet found.

One of those drivers, Ron LaFlamme, said he was pulled over and asked to perform a sobriety test despite having neither alcohol nor drugs in his system.

“I was surprised when he started asking me to do a sobriety test,” LaFlamme told WSMV4 in an interview that aired Tuesday. “It was wrongful arrest.”

Former Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper Asa Pearl reportedly arrested 22 drivers between 2021 and 2024 for DUI, even though they had no drugs or alcohol in their system or were within the legal limit (Getty Images)

The remaining 19 dismissals were attributed to procedural issues, including the arresting trooper’s unavailability for court or inability to recall specifics of the stop, officials said.

Attorney David McKenzie, representing LaFlamme, told the outlet that word of the dismissals spread among local defense attorneys and raised concerns about enforcement practices.

“I know that during the time that Ron’s case was making its way through the court, Ron’s case was not the only one with this particular trooper, where blood results were coming back negative,” McKenzie said.

He added: “This could happen to your child. This could happen to your parent. This could happen to your coworker.”

Pearl resigned from the Tennessee Highway Patrol in 2024, and his personnel file offers no explanation for his departure and makes no mention of the dozens of DUI cases that were later thrown out, according to the report.

Pearl did not respond to WSMV4’s requests for comment. The Tennessee Highway Patrol also declined the outlet’s request to comment on the matter.

The Independent has contacted the Tennessee Highway Patrol for comment.

This latest report is part of WSMV4’s “Sobering Problem” series, which investigates Tennessee’s troubling pattern of sober drivers being wrongly arrested for DUI and left waiting months for blood test results to prove their innocence.

Last month, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation acknowledged it had undercounted DUI cases involving people who had no drugs or alcohol in their system. New data shows that from 2017 to 2024, more than 2,500 drivers in Tennessee were sober at the time of their DUI arrest, which is more than double the number the TBI previously reported, according to WSMV4.