RI Attorney General: Assistant AG Will Be Suspended Without Pay After Humiliating Arrest
“You know, look, she’s put me in a bad position. She’s embarrassed herself, humiliated herself, treated the Newport Police Department horribly.”
It’s been a while since we’ve seen such an unfiltered and humiliating display of entitlement from a public official. But the news of Rhode Island Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Hogan Flanagan’s spectacular arrest for refusing to leave a Newport restaurant was so extreme, it made national headlines. I reported on this story here.
Video from the arresting officer’s bodycam is hard to look away from. When he refused her demand to turn it off — claiming, incorrectly, that “it’s protocol when a citizen requests it” — Hogan Flanagan repeatedly insisted, “I’m an AG, I’m an AG.”
The officer’s blunt reply the first time: “Good for you. I don’t give a sh**.”
After the video of the incident went viral on Tuesday, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Democrat, spoke to local radio station WPRO-AM.
Neronha was not pleased. He warned that “strong sanctions” were in store for Hogan Flanagan.
You know, look, she’s put me in a bad position. She’s embarrassed herself, humiliated herself, treated the Newport Police Department horribly. You know, she is going to take some steps to try to address that in the next day or so.
But I just don’t know what I’m going to do yet, Gene, and I have to give it some more thought. But inexcusable behavior.
…
I haven’t had many issues like this while I’ve been attorney general. I’ve had a few. I want to get some more information, frankly, about what’s going on with her before I make my final decision.
Asked by the reporter if Hogan Flanagan is currently working, Neronha replied:
I wouldn’t call them vacation days. I will tell you Gene that, in the end, there will be a suspension without pay here if I retain her, for sure. So she’s not going to continue, you know, to go on as if nothing happened in terms of salary and that kind of thing. So it’ll be a strong sanction here.
So, I just want to think it through and get all the information to make sure I’m doing the right thing. I have a responsibility here to protect the office and the work. But these are decisions that impact human beings too, so I want to take everything into account and make sure that I’m doing what I think is right and is consistent with what I’ve done in the past.
BREAKING: RI Attorney General Peter Neronha (D) says assistant AG Devon Flanagan will be SUSPENDED after she was arrested for trespassing while drunk:
"She’s put me in a bad position. She’s embarrassed herself… in the end, there will be a suspension without pay here…. So… https://t.co/uHOKnG0DCp pic.twitter.com/irTjiJqqpM
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 19, 2025
Neronha learned of the arrest shortly after it happened last Thursday night. He’s had nearly a week to “think about it.” While his initial reaction was likely one of anger, his last remark suggests he may be softening his stance.
Hogan Flanagan’s hubris — no doubt amplified by alcohol — appeared to reveal how she truly sees herself. Her identity seems tied to what she regards as her lofty position within the Rhode Island attorney general’s office.
Her behavior reflects the sense of entitlement we’ve come to expect from the elite ruling class, many of whom truly do think they are above the law.
Perhaps this incident will ultimately make her a better, more-grounded lawyer. But her behavior was so egregious that it demands punishment. While it will take a long time for her to live this episode down and she is surely experiencing intense personal embarrassment and regret, she must be made to suffer some tangible, real-world consequences for her performance.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
No one is above the law!* If she thinks that is a perk of her position she is sorely mistaken and should be dismissed.
* = except Tom Alexandrovich
She should resign. She should make a public apology and announce that she will step down from her position. That would be the honorable choice and would return some respect to her for her extreme arrogance.
It would be the honorable choice.
Which is why you know she won’t do that.
I doubt she will unless the AG grows a pair and gives her the choice of either resigning with a public apology to R.I. residents and the Newport Police Dept or being fired and referred to the State Bar to have her license suspended. It should be anyways for that production but I doubt it will.
The film has been out there for a week. How long does he have to think about this as it’s pretty darn cut and dried.
Well maybe. I’m not saying there should be no repercussions, but I wouldn’t be that outraged if it she kept her job. It was a stupid, drunken mistake, it happens in the legal profesion. As someone once said, good luck finding a law firm without at.least one alcoholic. She didn’t harm anyone but herself. I’m willing to be magnanimous here.
She harmed the reputation of the AG’s office.
If she is an alcoholic then not disciplining her would be enabling that behavior. Firing is likely the only thing that will penetrate her puffed up self importance.
If law firms didn’t put up with it, then it wouldn’t be a problem after a while.
I am super confused. This happened a week ago, and hes still thinking about what to do but hasnt done it yet? What are we waiting for, another vid to drop?
It has been my experience that people with power & authority really hate to make unpleasant decisions. That applies to everyone, I suppose. But when you have authority, any delay in exercising it is visible and subject to criticism because you have other people waiting for you to make that unpleasant decision. I watched an entire organization delay telling a company that they were losing a contract for two months because nobody wanted to give the company the bad news.
Most likely he’s not waiting for anything. He’s just avoiding the unpleasantness.
Just rip off the band aid and get the pain over with.
Investigation into the behavior of state government employees can take weeks, if not months. Best that can be done in the interim is suspension with pay, which looks too much like a paid vacation, so they’re usually reluctant to do that. What they can do is limit the official’s work or authority, such as when a cop is put on a desk job pending the outcome of an investigation. This lady will probably have her cases taken from her and be doing grunt work for other prosecutors (while receiving her full pay).
This fate may also encourage her to do as tmm has suggested above. An investigation into a state employee’s behavior is typically suspended if the employee resigns. So resignation has the benefit of keeping an official stain off the employee’s work record. (Although in this particular situation, having garnered such attention, that’s not going to help much, and she could still be prosecuted for any criminal offenses.)
he is waiting for things to calm down
so he can slap her wrist and say
she was punished … no ice cream
at the office party….
That’s the Dhimmi-crat way. Never impose a substantive punishment/consequence for wrongdoing, when you can just bide your time and wait for the public reaction/scrutiny to blow over. Accountability is not in the vile Dhimmi-crats ethos or DNA.
He’s sad because if this were under the radar she’d get off with a slap on the wrist but because it has national attention, he pretty much has to fire her or no one will respect him.
Not applicable, because no self-respecting person would identify as Democrat.
Perhaps this incident will ultimately make her a better, more-grounded lawyer.
Only after she’s been disbarred for 5 years. And made to re-apply.
‘Special Assistant Attorney General.’
Guys, I think I found the problem.
The honorable thing would be to resign, but doubt she can grasp the concept.
Instead, I think this ‘special AG’ is consulting her attorney for victimhood wiggle room to sue the arresting officer, the Newport PD, and possibly her boss because reasons.
The sense of entitlement is outrageous. OTOH, getting drunk and doing something stupid (that did not, in fact, result in physical harm to anyone – she was thrown out of a bar but wouldn’t leave, she didn’t drive drunk and kill someone) is something that I propose many people reading this comment have done.
So – suspend her without pay for a while. But don’t disbar her. See if some humility results.
Doubt that being disbarred is on the table. Even a temp suspension of her ability to practice isn’t really a possibility. Fired? That’s possible but based on the language used by AG he ain’t gonna fire her. I’d be surprised if it is more than suspension without pay 30 days or less. She’s gonna need far more direct consequences to achieve any humility and going soft is gonna do nothing but reinforce her attitude of entitled, untouchable superiority.
Huh?
I doubt anyone reading this comment has done that. And it wasn’t just that, it was her interaction with the cops on top of that.
She certainly didn’t seem drunk to me. What on that video made you think she was drunk? And, if she was, then I would lay money that this was probably the 1000th time she did this. But she didn’t appear to be drunk to me, at all.
She threatened to abuse government power to exact revenge for a situation that was entirely of her doing. She definitely needs to be fired and charged and needs to spend time in prison thinking about what responsibility people have with government power that they are charged with temporarily managing.
Convicted? No, never convicted.
You’re being sarcastic right…. She was hammered! Slurring her words and unsteady on her feet…
I didn’t hear any slurring and she looked steady enough on her feet. She didn’t appear drunk to me. Ditzy, but not drunk.
Getting drunk and trespassed out of a bar then argue with police to the point of getting cuffed and stuffed? No, can’t say I’ve ever had that happen so I guess we run with different crowds. I agree about the disbarment unless she refuses to resign her position. This is a bad look for that AG’s department. In any case, she should be immediately suspended during the “investigation”.
She needs to lose her law license. Period.
Full Stop, said Kamala Harris. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!
That’s the leftist mantra we have heard time after time, day after day, incessantly for YEARS.
My measure of what should happen?
Do to her what would have happened to ANY of us serfs out here in flyover land.
She does not need a free pass, an education, a come to Jesus moment, a reckoning, or any other bullshit excuse.
It does not matter that someone had no physical harm. The result should be what they would do to any of us in the same circumstance.
We are not their servants, their serfs, their subjects. This loud mouth crunt needs to drop a few steps off of her ladder of:
“I am better than you!”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an AG”
“I’m an A…”
No you are not. You are fired.
“Full Stop, said Kamala Harris.”
Wrong DEI hire.
When a Democrat says “no one is above the law” you have to reference you Dem to English phrase translation book. It means “Show me the Republican, I’ll show you the crime”.
“Perhaps this incident will ultimately make her a better, more-grounded lawyer.”
Leopard, spots, some assembly required.
I think it’s probably more accurate to say that this incident revealed who she is rather than inciting her to address her issues.
Sorry to say but this incident has eroded any trust that she’s a moral and upstanding officer of the court.
^^^THIS^^^
The Newport, RI police come out of this looking pretty good. The RI AG sounds like a mealy-mouthed fool.
Props to that cop who was unimpressed with the “do you know who I am” mantra. He was having none of it.
Sadly, he is more likely to be punished than it sounds like she will. Presuming the typical Democrat anti-police behavior…
Fired the next day, referral to the RI Bar Association for further action (probably 6 month suspension.)3
Her boss left himself room to decide to fire her if the political fall out gets out of hand. If someone starts a petition to get rid of her or she makes a fool of herself during an interview, he’ll let her go. But it seems that mostly he just wants the problem to go away.
In other words, he’s a politician.
good now we know who you are
the officer would have been fired if used such “abusive” language against a member of the blmplo
good job done officer
The RI AG will think about Flanagan’s punishment until the incident is forgotten, then he’ll announce that her unpaid suspension was enough and he’ll reinstate her.
Yes, I am a bit cynical.
I say your being a realist not being cynical.
The AG went on:
we dont normally prosecute people we know or are politically aligned with so this is going to be tough
Im waiting for our friends in the media to kind of ya know spin this to
trump wants her fired as he moves national guard into the state
and then I can get back to my dei agenda while sunning in marthas vineyards
A press release will drop at 5pm on the Friday before Labor Day that she has resigned “for personal reasons”. She will plea bargain the charges to something misdemeanor, pay a fine, and do some community service, with the record wiped clean if she doesn’t do anything like this again. In a couple months, she will quietly pop up again as an attorney for another state agency.
Like the RI Alcohol Control Board.
What did happen in that restaurant that they called the police??? Two women so drunk that they are totally out of control is repugnant, but for one to be a public official charged with prosecuting law breakers is incredible. She can never prosecute anyone again without having this incident thrown back in her face!
“Two women so drunk that they are totally out of control is repugnant.”
As a former LEO, we call that “Prey.”
Drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, honey. At least you can do something about one of those characteristics.
Sh*t’s poison.
Asst RI AG: “I’m an AG, I’m an AG.”
The officer’s blunt reply: “Good for you. I don’t give a sh**.”
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week!!!!!
“It’s protocol to turn off your camera if a person requests it”
” That’s lawyer bullshit”
I saw what the basis for her statement is. If a victim or witness is not being confrontational and asks for the body cam to be turned of the protocol is that the officer should do that.
This drunken moron of a AG thought she was the victim.
Hopefully, the RI attorney regulators will open a case immediately.
Once the perp’s license is either suspended or revoked, she will be unable to serve as an attorney.
The vile Dhimmi-crats always suspend their miscreants and wrongdoers; they never fire them. Always attempting to provide cover and wait until controversy and the incident blows over.
This statement shows what a despicable, lowlife POS the Rhode Island AG is. He is absolute scum.
The chick didn’t put anyone in “a bad position”. She committed a crime, made a ridiculous nuisance of herself and threatened to abuse government power to exact personal revenge on a police officer doing his job. The AG, i f he had any integrity, at all – even a smidgeon – would have just come out and said that the video demonstrated she was wrong and that she needs to suffer the consequences of her lunatic actions and that Rhode Island deserves better people than that being entrusted with government power and he is sorry that she was ever an AAG and is looking into how she got the job.
Of course, Rhode Island is a thoroughly corrupt state with the dems there operating like the mafia.
“Rhode Island is a thoroughly corrupt state.”
She’ll keep her job. Who else would protect the child molesters, rapists, murderers, and assorted perverts?
Oooooooooohhhhhh!
Someone is triggered. They must be intimately involved in the perversion.
Thanks for the downvote. You outed yourself.
“‘You know, look, she’s put me in a bad position.’
This statement shows what a despicable, lowlife POS the Rhode Island AG is. He is absolute scum.”
“Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter’s to be married and you ask me…”
It seems to me she put herself in a bad position.
“Of course, Rhode Island is a thoroughly corrupt state with the dems there operating like the mafia.”
I think you repeated yourself there…
I still want to see what this chick had to do for the restaurant to kick her out and then call the cops to get her to leave. It had to be something really, really bad – much worse than the body cam footage we saw.
And these girls didn’t seem drunk, at all. They don’t even have that excuse. Something really weird and really bad happened that led up tot he cops being there and, for some reason, we aren’t getting any bit of info on it.
There have been people in the private sector who have done something similar (drunk and aggressive) while not mentioning their company and have been terminated within a day or so because the actions of the employee harms the reputation of the company,
Here, we have a woman who brings here position to the front and center of the incident. While her screaming “I’m an AG!” is wrong on so many levels, what I found more egregious was her threat toward the officer of:
Well, you’re gonna regret this! You’re gonna regret it!
To me, this is almost as unconscionable as her not leaving and following the laws.
According to the Attorney General, this woman argues in front of the Rhode Island Supreme Court – the highest court in the state – and she is threatening the officer with what is presumably legal actions?
How can she be trusted to deal with cases in a fair manner as she has blatantly shown that she has a real hatred toward those who oppose her (and presumably can bring the weight of legal proceedings against the officer.)
It is not just her actions, but in addition her threats, that demands she be terminated from her position.
A private company would have done it days ago. The people of the State of Rhode Island need to have the same resolution.
“Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Rhode Island is thoroughly corrupt with some of the most despicable politicians and government officials that can be found anywhere in America.
The only state I know that is so in the bag that their infrequent Republican governors and US senators used to file annual bills to ban all handguns.
Getting drunk and trespassed for a public servant entrusted to enforce the laws of RI. To then argue about it, do the whole “do you know who I am” routine, struggle to get put into the car and then tell the cop he is going to regret it which is an outright threat is not cool at all.
She should already be suspended without pay pending termination and be reported to the bar for threatening a police officer like that.
The Apostle Paul did worse, but then he changed his life and profession.
That only happened AFTER he was fired from his day job with a lightning strike.
What would have been the consequence/punishment if she was a Republican or Conservative?
What vis her relationship to the AG, Governor, either senator or member of the House of Representatives?
What would have happened?
REPUBLICANS would have fired her without delay. If the offense was prosecutable, the person would be quickly convicted and incarcerated.
Democrats DO NOT hold theirs accountable for anything.
So she’s an “AG”? Big deal. That and $8 will get her a small designer coffee that she uses to virtue signal what a “good person” she is at the office, brainless little AWFL that she broadcasts to everyone. Can’t imagine what she must be like to whatever is unfortunate enough to be a significant-other like thing to her.
Someone once said “She may be hot, but somewhere out there is a guy who is tired of f’k ing her.”
It’s not tired of fk ing her. It’s tired of putting up with her sh*t.
“…(S)he is surely experiencing intense personal embarrassment and regret…”
I wouldn’t bet money on that. Conduct that brazen is simply displaying who she really is and what she truly believes.
Alcohol doesn’t create behavior; it just removes the filters and lets the behaviors we usually keep suppressed for social reasons out into the light.
The only difference alcohol made in this instance is she expressed her belief she is above the law out loud for everyone to hear. Usually, it’s whispered in a quiet sidebar away from the prying eyes and ears of the crowd. Been there, done that as a LEO.
If there is any embarrassment and regret, it’s because she was dumb enough to get tagged on video, not because of what she said.
Plus, her boss gave it away at the beginning of his statement; Her lack of professionalism, integrity, and ethics is a problem for HIM. If it wasn’t on video, it wouldn’t be a problem for ANYONE!…ESPECIALLY him!
Embarrassment for being all over social media. Regret for getting caught. That’s probably about it.
IMO … give her a second chance and suspend her without pay and maybe demote her … if there’s a second occurrence … can her.
Nope. Her ass needs to be fired.
But it is clear that she is related to or married to a scion of the Road Island (intentional) elite.
I experienced the same in Palm Beach, where every Kennedy who was six degrees separated from JFK had “Kennedy” somewhere in their list of names, and asked “do you know who I am?”
I can forgive her being drunk. That happens far too often in this world. If you want to get plastered, do it at home.
I cannot forgive her threats to make the officers “regret it.”
I have always found that when people get drunk, their true feelings on something comes out. Her true feelings are that she can use the weight of her office to attack an officer and make him “regret” his legal actions.
That is unforgivable.
Neronha should terminate her.
Flanagan’s behavior, now well known to those in the jurisdiction, and across the nation, leave her untrustworthy in the public’s eyes.
A district attorney’s office must operate within the law, and the public must be able to fully trust it to do so. Allowing Flanagan to continue at any level undermines the office’s credibility.
As an aside. the NorthEast is a complete cesspool.
Yeah,, getting self-outed as an arrogant twerp is inconvenient temporarily, but then comes the fun part of artfully converting this to victimhood, thereby negating any long term consequences.
I spend (waste) too much of my time watching po po bodycams on Youtube. Over there a frequent comment is “they had the right to remain silent, but not the ability.” The interesting part is that hubby did nothing to intervene. I suspect that he saw this as a way to get her to suddenly realize that SHE has a problem. We’ll save her a seat.
He did intervene. He kept saying I’m here babe.
That’s husband speak for calm down.
Good thing she had handcuffs on and was otherwise occupied.