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PrintCOLUMBIA — The president of an upstart used cell-phone retailer was arrested early Friday morning on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
MU police arrested Brian L. Laoruangroch, 23, on suspicion of driving while intoxicated at the intersection of College Avenue and Hospital Drive.
MU police Capt. Brian Weimer said the officer noticed that a license plate on the car Laoruangroch was driving did not have a tag showing the expiration year.
“That was the initiation of the stop,” Weimer said.
Laoruangroch is founder, president, and chief operating officer of Green Mobile, a used cell-phone retailer with a kiosk in Columbia Mall. He is also “Green Mobile Man” in the company’s TV commercials and was recently featured in Vox Magazine’s Oct. 4 “30 under 30” feature.
Messages left Tuesday at the kiosk and on Laoruangroch’s cell phone were not immediately returned. A receptionist at Green Mobile’s headquarters, 816 E. Broadway, said he was on the phone and unavailable.
Weimer said Laoruangroch took three standard field sobriety tests but would not say whether Laoruangroch declined a Breathalyzer test. Weimer declined to release Laoruangroch’s blood-alcohol level and also declined to give the officer’s observations of Laoruangroch during the arrest.
“Those are things that have to come up in court,” Weimer said.
Laoruangroch was president of the Missouri Students Association at MU in 2004. He is the first and only MSA president to be impeached, though he was not removed from office. The text of the impeachment bill said that Laoruangroch, who was 20 at the time, appeared drunk at an April 2004 awards dinner where several high-ranking university officials were present.
Laoruangroch posted $500 bond and has a court date set for Dec. 16.
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