The saga of embattled Rep. Jeff Wood, I-Chippewa Falls, continues after the lawmaker was charged with a felony in Monroe County Tuesday.

The Monroe County judge dropped a fourth offense Operating While Intoxicating charge against Wood, 41, and upped the charge to a felony based on two OWI convictions earlier this year, according to online court records.

Wood faces up to six years in jail and a $10,000 fine if convicted.

It had previously appeared Wood may have escaped the reach of a new drunken driving law that makes a fourth offense OWI a felony, since he was charged before the law went into effect. Gov. Jim Doyle signed a law last December that would make fourth offense OWIs a felony if they occur within five years of the last offense.

Wood’s felony charge, however, appears to have swung the balance of justice out of Wood’s favor.

Wood was recently sentenced to 60 days in jail after pleading guilty to an OWI charge in Marathon County Oct. 13. The representative served 45 days in jail earlier this year for another OWI conviction in Columbia County. He received work release privileges for both jail sentences.

Court records do not list an attorney for Wood’s case and it is unclear if Wood is representing himself after his attorney, Tracey Wood – who is not related to the legislator – withdrew from Wood’s case in Marathon and Monroe counties.

Wood represented himself at his Marathon County trial, according to online court records.

Wood’s legal troubles after entering the Legislature began in December 2008, when he crashed his car into a highway sign along I-39/90/94 and urinated on the side of the road, according to police reports. A breathalyzer test showed his blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit.

He was charged with an OWI after blood tests revealed he had been driving under the influence of high levels of cough syrup medicine.

The incident took place only one month after Wood won reelection.

Overall, Wood has accrued three OWI charges between December 2008 and December 2009. The Monroe County charge fell third in the sequence of arrests.

Wood’s run-ins with law enforcement in the past two years do not represent his only brushes with the law – Wood was convicted of drunken driving on two separate occasions when he was in his 20s.

A resolution to expel Wood failed in the Assembly; the Legislature chose to censure him instead.

Wood entered the Legislature as a Republican but switched to an Independent before the 2008 election, at which point he began working closely with Democrats. Several Democratic Assembly members rallied on his behalf to block the expulsion resolution.

Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, who introduced the resolution, was one of the Assembly’s most vocal advocates for expelling Wood and criticized the decision to allow Wood to remain a member of the Legislature.

“The State Assembly failed the people of Wisconsin by letting Rep. Wood continue his service despite his dangerous conduct,” Nass said in a statement.

Wood’s term in the Legislature ends in January and he said in 2009 he will not be seeking reelection.