Driver pulls out half-eaten burrito when FHP trooper asks for license

Will Greenlee | Treasure Coast Newspapers

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — One sign that things may end poorly for Alexandra Ignatkina came when a Florida Highway Patrol trooper asked for her license and she pulled a half-eaten burrito from her purse.

That was the situation May 9, after the trooper stopped Ignatkina, 39, on Florida’s Turnpike in the area of Becker Road in St. Lucie County, according to an arrest report.

The trooper stopped Ignatkina after a bulletin about a northbound blue Ford Explorer driving erratically.

The trooper saw a blue sport utility vehicle matching the description, measuring its speed at 101 mph in a 70 mph zone.

The trooper stopped the SUV and smelled booze.

Asked for her license, the driver, Ignatkina, said, “Slow, little English.”

She said she spoke Russian.

Asked again for her license, Ignatkina went in her purse and grabbed an unwrapped, half-eaten burrito, which she put in front of the center console.

She then handed over the license, and performed field sobriety exercises.

The trooper communicated with Ignatkina using a translation app, and she said she’d been drinking.

“Yes, my friend got a green card today, and we have 1 bottle … 1 glass of champagne around 10:30, 11 o’clock,” she is quoted as saying. The traffic stop happened about 7:45 p.m.

Troopers recovered an empty, individual-sized wine bottle in her purse and another in the center console. A third individual-sized bottle was three quarters full.

A breath test measured Ignatkina’s blood alcohol content at 0.183. The legal limit is 0.08.

Ignatkina, of Sunny Isles Beach, was arrested on a DUI charge.