Mike Lynch, the top Republican in the Colorado House of Representatives who recently announced a congressional bid, was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of drunken driving and being in possession of a gun while intoxicated.
News on Wednesday of the previously unreported arrest came a week after the 2024 legislative session began and was a surprise to many at the state Capitol. Lynch has been the House minority leader for well over a year.
Lynch, 54, was driving an electric Ford Mustang Mach-E when he was pulled over by a Colorado State Patrol trooper on Interstate 25 between Fort Collins and Wellington on Sept. 30, 2022, for speeding. He was traveling 90 mph in a 75 mph zone, according to a summons.
A trooper smelled alcohol on Lynch’s breath and the Wellington lawmaker’s blood-alcohol level, when tested by a Breathalyzer, was about 0.16 – double the state’s driving limit of 0.08.
“I didn’t realize that I was over the limit,” Lynch said in an interview with The Colorado Sun on Wednesday, adding that he had just left a nonpolitical fundraiser when he was pulled over. “It was a bad call, man. Bad call on my part.”
Lynch said he didn’t disclose his arrest to members of the House Republican caucus before he was elected minority leader about two months later following the sudden death of then-House Minority Leader Hugh McKean. However, he said that some in the caucus knew about it before news of the arrest was first made public Wednesday by The Denver Post.
“This happened out of session, in between elections,” Lynch said. “I’m not running away from this. I’ve taken full responsibility for it.”
Lynch’s campaign shared some of the court records in the case with The Sun. The minority leader said he has stopped drinking alcohol. He called the arrest an embarrassing mistake that he’s learned from. Lynch said he hadn’t been arrested prior to Sept. 30, 2022, and that he hasn’t been arrested since.
Lynch was charged with driving under the influence, speeding 10-19 mph over the speed limit and being in possession of a gun while drunk. He pleaded guilty to driving while ability impaired, a lesser offense, and the gun charge. Prosecutors dropped the other charges.
The representative was sentenced in December 2022 to 18 months probation and 150 hours of community service. Lynch told The Sun he still has some community service hours to complete and that his probation term – during which he is prohibited from possessing a gun – will end in June.
The news of Lynch’s arrest comes a few weeks after he announced a bid to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, which spans the state’s Eastern Plains into Loveland and Douglas County. Lynch is one of nearly a dozen Republican candidates in the district, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, state Rep. Richard Holtorf and former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg.
The 4th District is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor, who in November announced his retirement, setting off a scramble to replace him in the heavily Republican district.
Lynch said he didn’t consider disclosing the arrest before announcing his candidacy.
“Voters are forgiving on these things,” he said. “A lot of people have gone through this.”
The trooper who pulled Lynch over wrote in an incident report that he was driving a marked patrol vehicle equipped with emergency lights when Lynch sped past him on I-25.
“I thought the Mustang might either be trying to race me or baiting me into a motor vehicle pursuit,” the trooper wrote.
The trooper wrote that he pulled Lynch over when he was driving 90 mph.
“As soon as the window came down I could smell the strong odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage,” the trooper wrote.
According to the incident report, Lynch’s “gait was unsteady.” The trooper saw that Lynch was carrying a pocket knife and went to secure it, at which point the representative said he also had a gun in his pocket and began to pull it out.
“I told him numerous times to stop and not move,” the trooper wrote. “For a moment, I was certain that Mr. Lynch was either purposefully pulling the gun out of his pocket or was so intoxicated that he did not realize what he was doing. … I asked Mr. Lynch what kind of gun he had in his pocket. He told me he had a little .380 and said ‘it’s not a big deal.’ I informed him that pulling a gun out of (your) pocket when in contact with the police was, in fact, a big deal and people get shot that way.”
According to the trooper, Lynch told him he was a supporter of law enforcement and “fought for ‘us.’” The trooper said that when he asked Lynch how much alcohol he had consumed, the representative said one beer and a “sip of a margarita.”
“I asked Mr. Lynch if he would participate in voluntary roadside tests,” the trooper wrote. “He did not answer my question and asked me to call Mike Honn.”
Honn is the Colorado State Patrol’s legislative liaison – effectively a lobbyist – at the Capitol.
Lynch rescinded the request, according to the trooper, and disclosed that he was a state representative.
Lynch, in an interview Wednesday with The Sun, said he “definitely” wasn’t trying to get special treatment by asking the trooper to call Honn or by mentioning that he is a state lawmaker.
When the Breathalyzer test revealed that Lynch was over the legal alcohol intoxication limit, the trooper asked Lynch if he knew what the limit was in Colorado. According to the incident report, Lynch said 0.2.
The Sun has requested any police body camera or dashboard camera footage captured by the State Patrol during the arrest. The agency said there is an eight-month backlog in processing requests for video footage.
Colorado’s congressional primary elections will be held June 25.
