CHESTER – A candidate for the Town of Chester Board facing gun and DWI charges has dropped out of the race.
The Orange County Board of Elections (BOE) received a notarized declination from Brian Youmans, 33, on Monday afternoon. Youmans had until last Friday to submit his withdrawal paperwork in-person or 5 p.m. on Tuesday via mail.
The Town of Chester Republican Committee has until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to file a certificate of substitution naming a replacement candidate for June’s primary against Town of Chester Councilman Bob Courtenay, who has been cross-endorsed by the Democrats.
Giuseppe Cassara, chairman of the Chester Republican Committee, said they will have a replacement candidate for Youmans by the deadline.
Republicans initially had difficulty locating Youmans after, according to sources, he checked himself into a rehabilitation center following his DWI arrest in Chester earlier this month. According to court documents, Youmans has been arrested for DWI three times in the past 13 years. Youmans’ latest DWI arrest occurred on the morning of April 3 in Chester.
Police responded to a report of a vehicle that had backed into another vehicle at approximately 9:34 a.m. in the parking lot between Chester Town Hall and the Chester Public Library. According to police, Youmans was determined to have been operating the vehicle that struck the parked car. After failing field sobriety tests, he was arrested and submitted to a breath test, which showed a blood alcohol content of 0.22%.
Youmans’ DWI arrest last week came after he was charged in January with attempted criminal possession of a weapon, criminal purchase of a weapon, and falsifying business records in the Town of Wallkill. All three charges were felonies but were reduced to misdemeanors in March.
He was arrested after allegedly lying on an application to obtain a rifle at a gun show held last November at the Orange County Fairgrounds in the Town of Wallkill. Youmans is scheduled to appear in Town of Wallkill Justice Peter Green’s on Wednesday.
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