An Iowa judge’s blood alcohol content was between four and five times the legal limit when officers arrested her, a crime lab analyst concluded in a report released after she dropped an effort to have it withheld.
Released Wednesday, July 15, the report said that six hours after Boone County sheriff’s deputies arrested Judge Adria Kester in the median of U.S. 30 in November 2025, staff at a local hospital drew three vials of blood from her left arm. An analysis showed Kester’s blood alcohol level was 0.25%.
An Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations expert concluded it had been between 0.31% and 0.40% when she was driving. The legal limit is 0.08%.
The sheriff’s office shared the DCI report a day after Kester dropped a lawsuit attempting to block the disclosure of public records related to her arrest.
The records, requested by the Des Moines Register in May, also included deputies’ body camera footage that showed the judge refusing to answer some of their questions, falling asleep several times and cursing at a deputy.
Case records previously released had not disclosed Kester’s blood alcohol content. In a statement Tuesday, after she stopped contesting the release of more documents, Kester said she now believes the public has a right to see footage and other evidence from her arrest.
“I cannot ask others to be accountable while trying to decide which parts of my own story people are allowed to see,” she said. “… Some of those records may capture me at my very worst. I cannot change that, and I am no longer trying to.”
Video, 911 calls show judge was unresponsive after her truck came to a stop
The sheriff’s office arrested Kester on the evening of Nov. 4 after two drivers called 911 to report that a truck was slowly rolling in the wrong direction on U.S. 30 near Ogden. One caller said the driver was hunched over the wheel.
The truck eventually rolled into the grassy median, coming to a stop.
Recordings of the 911 calls, along with deputies’ body camera footage, reveal Kester’s condition in the moments after her truck stopped.
Amanda Bills, a local nurse, reported that she got out of her own truck to try to assist Kester. She told a dispatcher that the judge was awake. But, she said, Kester just stared at her. Bills pounded the truck’s window.
“Ma’am,” she said. “Put your car in park. Unlock the door, and put your car in park. Park. Put your car in park. Ma’am, park. Unlock ― ma’am, unlock the (expletive) door, please. Ma’am, put your car in park. Ma’am. Ma’am. Put your car in park, please. I’m trying to help you. Unlock the door.”
Bills ultimately climbed into the truck through a back window and shifted the vehicle into park.
Ogden police Officer Tony Jones pulled into the grass and Boone County sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Larson arrived a few minutes later. Kester remained seated behind the wheel, her window rolled down. She stared at the men.
“She doesn’t know what happened,” Jones told Larson. “She can’t respond.”
“That isn’t true,” Kester responded.
Larson asked for the judge’s driver’s license.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me for,” she said.
When Boone County Deputy Cody Braunschweig arrived, he also asked for her license. She stared at him but did not respond.
“Please,” Braunschweig said.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” she said again.
“For your ID, your driver’s license,” Braunschweig said.
“Can you just get it?” she asked.
Braunschweig looked through the truck and found an Iowa State University cup in the passenger’s seat. He popped off the lid and saw red liquid with crushed ice. He sniffed the cup and said he smelled alcohol. He couldn’t tell what the drink was at first.
“Wine cooler,” Jones said, taking a whiff.
After paramedics assessed Kester, the deputies started to ask her questions as they stood in the median. She swayed and Braunschweig grabbed her.
“I don’t want you to fall,” he said. “You’re kind of stumbling here.”
“I’m not stumbling,” she said, swaying. “I’m right here.”
“Do you want to kind of step away from the ambulance for me?” Braunschweig said as the paramedics began to drive away.
“No,” Kester said.
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” the deputy asked. “Just a little bit? A lot of bit?”
Kester folded her arms.
“You don’t want to answer?” he asked.
She stared.
Braunschweig and Larson steadied Kester as they walked to a patrol vehicle. Braunschweig told her he would put her in the back seat. He placed a hand on her back as she climbed in.
“Can you stop?” she said.
“I’m just trying to make sure you don’t fall, ma’am,” he said.
“Can you not push me?” she said.
“I’m not trying to push you,” he said. “You were falling backwards. I was trying to make sure you didn’t fall backwards, OK?”
“(Expletive) off,” she said.
“OK,” he said.
In the back seat, she slumped over. When Braunschweig pulled the vehicle into the Boone County Jail sally port, he tried to stir her.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Are you awake? Can you step out for me?”
“No,” she said.
Braunschweig held her steady as she began to lean out of the car. The deputy called for paramedics, who pulled her onto a gurney with a sheet. They then drove her to the Boone County Hospital.
In an incident report, Boone County sheriff’s Sgt. Seth McCrae wrote that he drove to the hospital and “was informed” that Kester’s initial blood alcohol was 0.41%. The report does not state who gave him that information or how it was determined. Boone County Sheriff Andy Godzicki told the Register in an email that he believes hospital staff tested Kester’s blood.
Around 1:45 a.m. on Nov. 5, McCrae handed Kester her cellphone while she sat in an emergency room bed. A little more than five hours had passed since drivers reported her rolling the wrong way down the road.
“All right,” Kester said. “So can you explain what happened?”
Judge said she doesn’t know how she became so intoxicated
When deputies found Kester in her truck the night of her arrest, they asked her multiple times if she suffered from any medical conditions that would explain why she appeared so intoxicated. They also asked her husband, Nathan Kester, a sergeant with the Boone Police Department.
Both said no.
But in the eight months since the arrest, the judge has suggested that something other than alcohol could be to blame for what happened. In her May lawsuit attempting to block the sheriff’s office from releasing records tied to her arrest, Kester claimed the documents would reveal a medical issue that should be private. She didn’t say what the issue was, only stating that her condition is protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
After reviewing the investigative records, it’s still not clear what medical issue she was referring to. In her statement Tuesday announcing she would no longer fight the records’ release, her story shifted. Instead of arguing she has a medical condition that needed to be shielded from the public, she wrote that she was still trying to figure out if she had a medical problem that explains what happened on the night of her arrest.
“Releasing those records does not mean every question about that night has been answered, including questions I continue to work through with my physicians,” she said.
When she fought to keep the records sealed, Kester also argued that their release would compromise an investigation by the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the state panel that oversees discipline of judges. Kester, 56, pleaded guilty to a charge of operating while under the influence in December. She also has been suspended with pay since her arrest as the panel investigates.
In an email, State Court Administrator Robert Gast said Wednesday that the commission was still investigating Kester. He added that the judicial branch does not have the authority to suspend a judge without pay during an investigation.
In her statement, Kester said she regrets what she did the night of her arrest.
“Wearing a judicial robe means more than applying the law correctly ― it means earning the public’s trust every day,” she said. “My actions that night fell short of that responsibility, and I am deeply sorry to the people I served, to my colleagues, and to everyone who expected better judgment from someone entrusted with that office.”
Tyler Jett is an investigative reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at tjett@registermedia.com, 515-284-8215, or on X at @LetsJett. He also accepts encrypted messages at tjett@proton.me.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Records, body cam video released in OWI arrest of Iowa judge
Reporting by Tyler Jett, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Tyler Jett, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
