A drunk driving charge against Mayor Matt Bemrich was dropped Wednesday, days after a judge ruled that police had no grounds to pull him over on the September evening on which he was arrested.

Assistant Webster County Attorney Doug Cook filed a motion seeking dismissal of the charge.

Webster County District Associate Judge Joseph L. Tofilon then ordered that the charge be dismissed.

Bemrich declined to comment Wednesday night.

He had been arrested at about 9 p.m. Sept. 10 and was charged with operating while intoxicated, first offense, and improper use of lanes, according to court records.

In the criminal complaints filed against him, police wrote that his 2025 Ford pickup was spotted crossing the center line of a road numerous times and making an improper turn.

Officers wrote in the complaints that Bemrich smelled of alcohol and admitted to having drinks before driving. They wrote that he declined to take one field sobriety test and stopped another one after about 10 seconds.

In a breath test conducted after the traffic stop, his blood alcohol content was found to be .180, according to the criminal complaints. A blood alcohol content of .08 is the level at which a person is considered to be drunk under Iowa law.

Bemrich’s attorney, Stu Cochrane, of Fort Dodge, asked Tofilon to stop the prosecutors from using certain evidence on the grounds that it was not properly obtained. A hearing on that request was held Dec. 8.

The evidence presented at that hearing consisted of the testimony of the arresting officer, Keaton Schultz, who was a Fort Dodge police officer at the time but is no longer on the force, and the dashcam video from his patrol vehicle.

Tofilon viewed the one minute and 47 seconds of video and ruled that it did not entirely support Schultz’s testimony.

In his ruling released Friday, Tofilon wrote, “In sum, the court only finds one of the eight observations of the arresting officer to be substantiated and suspicious, that being the wide turn onto First Avenue North. This single observation of improper driving did not give rise to a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was intoxicated.”

The judge ruled that the police did not have reason to stop Bemrich, so all evidence obtained after the stop, including the blood alcohol test, could not be used in a trial.