Baldwin Park Assemblyman Gives Up Car, Apologizes

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Nearly a month after Assemblyman , the lawmaker has agreed to forgo the use of a government car and apologized.

The Pasadena Star News reported that Hernandez announced Friday that he would no longer use a car from the Assembly motor pool. 

Hernandez was arrested March 27 in the parking lot of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Concord. Hernandez' district includes the Baldwin Park.

The Concord Police Department administered a blood test after the arrest, and those results are expected at the end of this month, the newspaper reported.

Hernandez was reportedly with a Kaiser lobbyist in the state-owned Toyota Camry hybrid when he was stopped. He has denied any wrongdoing.

“Having reviewed the Rules of the Assembly, I learned I should not have used a state vehicle for travel outside the Capitol to the Bay Area, and I apologize to my constituents and colleagues for doing so,” Hernandez, 36, a former West Covina City Councilman, said in a prepared statement he gave to the newspaper. “I do believe pending test results will make clear that I was in fact driving within the law.”

Hernandez told the Sacramento Bee after his arrest that he had "two, maybe three glasses of wine over the course of a period longer than four hours after dinner.  I was not drunk...I felt clear and coherent. I felt very comfortable driving."

He declined at that time to say if he had someone in the car with him.