A 46-year-old Edina man convicted of driving while intoxicated in Mankato has lost his challenge of the conviction before the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Bradley Paul Radichel hired controversial Shakopee lawyer Sam McCloud, who drew Twin Cities media attention with a drug arrest last year, to represent him for his Blue Earth County case.

Radichel was arrested in March 2005. After months of legal wrangling by McCloud, an attorney known for his cowboy hat and boots, Radichel entered a rare “Lothenbach” plea in January 2007 just prior to going to trial.

The Lothenbach plea allowed Radichel and McCloud to appeal pre-trial issues.

Radichel had filed a motion in 2006 to suppress alcohol test results that showed he had a blood-alcohol concentration of .11 when a Mankato police officer stopped him for speeding on March 16, 2005, then gave him a breath test after smelling alcohol. Radichel based the motion on a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that had rescinded the state’s implied-consent statute, the law that requires drivers to submit to alcohol testing if a police offer suspects they are over the legal limit.

The portion of the statute that was rescinded, however, dealt with how a driver’s license was revoked after his or her arrest, the Court of Appeals said in its recent ruling in Radichel’s case. So, even though that portion of the statute was rescinded, it didn’t keep prosecutors from using the alcohol test results as evidence, the ruling said.

“We are not persuaded by Bradley Radichel’s argument that the results of his breath test should have been suppressed,” the appeals court judges said in their written decision.