CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – News4JAX on Tuesday obtained an arrest report for now-former Clay County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Christopher Coldiron, who was arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol on suspicion of driving under the influence Friday.
According to the report from FHP, Coldiron was driving his pickup truck Friday night when he veered off Blanding Boulevard into a ditch. Coldiron had tried without success to get the truck out of the ditch by moving forward and in reverse, troopers said. According to the report, he showed “indicators of impairment” and could not find his driver’s license. His speech was slurred, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath, the report shows. Troopers said they found several empty and open alcoholic beverage containers in the truck. The troopers noted that Coldiron almost stumbled several times as he walked around the scene. According to the report, he leaned on one of the FHP cruisers to maintain his balance and refused to take a field sobriety test. That’s when the troopers read him his rights and arrested him.
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Coldiron was fired on Monday, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson confirmed to News4JAX.
Coldiron was also arrested in December 2021 by FHP and accused of the same offense, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Coldiron was a patrol lieutenant with the Sheriff’s Office when he was involved in a crash in Bradford County last year.
In that incident, FHP said, Coldiron was driving a pickup truck on County Toad 233 in Bradford County when he went through a stop sign and collided with another pickup truck. A passenger riding with Coldiron suffered minor injuries. Coldiron wasn’t hurt, but he was arrested on suspicion of DUI and booked into the Bradford County jail.
Court documents show Coldiron pled “no contest” in July and a judge convicted him of driving under the influence of alcohol. According to a court filing, Coldiron was sentenced to two days in jail but was given credit for time already served.
Coldiron, who served as a director of corrections, was demoted to lieutenant after his first DUI. The demotion resulted in a 24% pay cut.
Around the same time as the December DUI arrest, Coldiron was also the subject of an internal investigation.
According to documents obtained by News4JAX, Coldiron was involved in a confrontation in Bradford County with family members of his girlfriend over child custody in which law enforcement was called.
The investigation found that Coldiron tried to intimidate the responding deputies and challenged them to call their supervisors and even the sheriff, saying someone was going to jail if the child was removed from the home. After it was settled, Coldiron admitted he was wrong to have interfered. An internal investigation sustained complaints of interfering in the deputies’ duties, trying to influence a civil matter and conduct unbecoming.
According to a 2017 Facebook post, Coldiron previously served as the director of the Sheriff’s Office’s Personnel and Professional Standards department.