Drunk minister swerved through NYC tunnel with vodka, pills: cops

By Philip Messing And Amanda Lozada
New York Post
March 14, 2015

http://nypost.com/2015/03/14/drunk-minister-swerved-through-holland-tunnel-with-vodka-pills-cops/

Diane Reiners

That’s not holy water!

A priest at Manhattan’s famed ­Cathedral of St. John the Divine was nabbed with an open bottle of vodka and prescription meds in her car after she was allegedly spotted driving drunkenly through the Holland Tunnel Friday night, Port Authority ­police said.

Diane Reiners, a 53-year-old Episcopalian minister from Brooklyn, was swerving in her orange 2004 Toyota, hitting the tunnel curbs and at times coming to a stop as she drove to New Jersey at around 6 p.m., authorities said.

Other drivers called 911, and PA ­Officer Christopher Paskovitch stopped Reiners’ car in Jersey City, a block from the tunnel.

Officers allegedly found an open container of Absolut on the center console, vodka in a water bottle, 31 pills of the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam prescribed in someone else’s name, and more than 200 pills of tramadol, a potent pain killer.

Reiners, of Fort Greene, allegedly had bloodshot eyes and booze on her breath and slurred her words, sources said. She also failed a field sobriety test, the sources added.

In 2012 she was ordained as an Episcopalian minister and is an assistant priest at the massive Morningside Heights cathedral, one of the five largest church buildings in the world. Reiners also works with the American Red Cross in disaster relief, ­according to her LinkedIn profile.

On Twitter — where she goes by @UnrulyPastor — she describes herself as an “unruly priest, disaster-recovery worker, 100 percent city girl,” and adds, “My shoes never match and I need God’s grace so many times a day. So many times. There I go again.”

Reiners often tweets about tolerance.

She helped coordinate 9/11 relief ­efforts at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, her LinkedIn profile says.

“I have responded to more than 25 nationally declared disasters,” the profile reads.

She also served as a chaplain at SUNY Maritime College, it says.

Reiners was charged with reckless driving, criminal possession of a controlled and dangerous substance in a motor vehicle and disobeying traffic laws, officials said.

Her car was impounded and she was released Friday night with a summons.

Neither Reiners nor St. John the Divine returned requests for comment.