Drunk Count Against Burford Dismissed

A judge on Friday threw out public drunkenness charges against former Environmental Protection Agency chief Anne McGill Burford, who was accused of causing a scene at the county jail where her husband was charged with drunken driving.

Burford’s attorneys described her as a “poor soul worried about her husband” during the September incident in which police said she banged her shoes on cell bars, scratched a female guard and screamed obscenities.

Arlington County District Judge Eleanor Dobson threw out the charges two hours after the start of the trial, which had been delayed three times. She said there was not enough evidence to convict Burford of being drunk in public. Robert F. Burford, director of the Bureau of Land Management, is scheduled for trial April 2.