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A wrongful DUI arrest by Loveland PD kept woman from her kids for months. It's part of a pattern, attorney says.

Charges against Emily Dutka were dropped and her record was expunged, but the damage was already done.
Credit: Austin Humphreys/for The Denver Gazette
Emily Dutka poses for a photo in her apartment in Timnath on Thursday, January 13, 2022. Dutka was arrested on two counts of DUI in 2020 but charges were dropped after testing showed no intoxicants in her blood.

LOVELAND, Colo. — Emily Dutka was arrested by the Loveland Police Department on two counts of DUI in May 2020. The issue was, she wasn’t drunk.

After the arrest, a blood test confirmed Dutka’s blood alcohol concentration was 0.027 — significantly below the legal limit of 0.08. Charges against Dutka were dropped and her record was expunged, but the damage was already done.

At the time of the arrest, Dutka was in the National Guard and in the process of transferring to the Army Reserves so she could move overseas to be with her husband and two children, who were living in Austria and preparing to move to Serbia for her husband’s job. Because of the arrest, the transfer was dissolved and Dutka was separated from her family for nearly six months.

“It’s time I will never get back,” said Dutka, a 27-year-old Fort Collins resident. “I missed my daughter’s first steps. I missed her second birthday. … It’s caused issues between my marriage, it’s caused emotional issues, attachment issues (with my kids).”

> Read the full story at denvergazette.com.

RELATED: Lawsuit accuses Loveland officer of falsely arresting man for DUI

RELATED: Independent review of Loveland Police Department after arrest of Karen Garner complete

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