A 41-year-old woman who police said has had multiple drunken-driving arrests across the United States was arrested on DUI charges again Monday — this time in west suburban Riverside.
Tasha Lynn Schleicher, of New Hope, Minn., was found sitting in her running car at a gas station in the 3000 block of Harlem Avenue with an open bottle of Crown Royal whiskey in the front passenger seat, police said. She told police she wound up in Riverside after dropping off her 15-year-old son in Indiana to party during spring break.
Schleicher was taken into custody in what Riverside police Chief Tom Weitzel called “one of the worst impaired driving arrests our agency has ever made.”
Weitzel said Schleicher’s record includes at least two DUI-related convictions in Minnesota. Before one arrest in Minnesota, authorities say, she was breastfeeding a child while driving drunk.
Schleicher is charged in Riverside with two counts of felony aggravated drunken driving, two counts of misdemeanor drunken driving, failure to have vehicle insurance, driving with a revoked license and transporting open alcohol while driving.
Since 2006, Schleicher has been arrested on DUI charges in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, California, Oregon and Minnesota, Weitzel said. She also was wanted on warrants in Nebraska, Idaho and Oregon.
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She is being held at Cook County Jail pending a court appearance Monday. Her bail was set at $15,000, Weitzel said.
Riverside police responded to the gas station about 9:30 p.m. Monday after a 911 caller reported a possible medical problem with a woman who appeared to be passed out behind the wheel. When police arrived, Schleicher was not wearing shoes and her clothes were falling off her as she attempted to fill her 2005 Nissan Maxima with kerosene, not gasoline, officials said.
Schleicher told police she had 11 children but couldn’t find them.
After searching the area and interviewing witnesses, police found no children and arrested Schleicher.
Riverside police later learned from Minnesota child protective services authorities that Schleicher’s children had been taken away from her because of the prior DUI arrest in Minnesota in October 2017, Weitzel said. Minnesota police told local authorities that Schleicher was arrested there while her children were in the car, including the one she was breastfeeding while driving intoxicated, Weitzel said.
Weitzel said Schleicher has been living as a transient, moving frequently. One reason she has managed to collect so many DUI arrests is that police departments do not have a national database of all DUI arrests, the chief said. Many municipalities choose to cite first-time DUI offenders with local citations, which don’t have to be entered into a larger recording system.
“She is a master at gaming the system from state to state,” Weitzel said.
During Monday’s arrest in Riverside, Weitzel told police she was in Illinois because she dropped the only child still in her custody, a 15-year-old son, in Indiana to party for spring break. Riverside police are working with Minnesota authorities to try to locate the boy, Weitzel said.
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