DUI campaign shifts focus amid changing trends

In the 30 years since the fight against driving under the influence of alcohol began, a lot has changed and the number of drunken drivers has decreased. But some new trends are beginning to worry experts.

For Gary Urbantke, the fight against impaired drivers has been personal for 25 years.

Urbantke, once a Henderson police officer, was driving from Las Vegas to Henderson to pick his daughter up from school on July 16, 1984.

His wife and 5-year-old son were with him in the car when he saw a van coming straight at him — in his lane on the divided Boulder Highway near Russell Road.

The two cars collided at a combined speed of more than 100 mph.

Urbantke was knocked out and paralyzed. His wife was killed instantly and his son died four hours later at a hospital.

The other driver had only a broken leg. He was arrested, convicted and served 10 years in prison for the crash — two years less than the maximum allowed at the time for two counts of felony DUI.

Urbantke has since remarried and gone on with his life.

“But there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think of both my wife and son, and it’s the same way for my daughter,” he said. “It’s something that will affect us for the rest of our lives.”

“We were fortunate in the fact that this man was tried, he was convicted and he did his time; a lot of people get off on technicalities.”

Urbantke has been lobbying for tougher DUI laws and has been trying to educate people about the dangers of impaired driving.

Since the crash, DUI laws across the nation and in Nevada have become stricter, with harsher penalties and lower blood-alcohol levels permitted.

But alcohol-related crashes still accounted for about 37 percent of Nevada traffic fatalities in 2008, a figure that has stayed virtually unchanged for more than a decade.

As an annual national campaign against driving under the influence kicked off Friday, two trends are particularly worrisome to law enforcement officials — the rise in people driving under the influence of drugs and the increase in the number of women driving under the influence.


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Disbarred Las Vegas attorney accepts decision

The Nevada Supreme Court has disbarred Las Vegas attorney Manuel Montelongo, who must wait three years before applying for reinstatement.

According to the high court's order, filed Wednesday, Montelongo submitted an affidavit consenting to disbarment and acknowledged that the State Bar of Nevada "is currently investigating seven pending grievance files and has filed three complaints that contain allegations that are grounds for discipline against him."
In the affidavit, Montelongo wrote, "I submit the instant affidavit consenting to disbarment with full knowledge that if the State Bar of Nevada prosecuted the complaints and grievances, I could not successfully defend against the charges."

His attorney, Gregory Knapp, declined to comment on the disbarment.

Deputy Bar Counsel David Clark said most of the allegations against Montelongo involved "either misappropriation or failure to properly account for monies held in trust."

"I have no direct evidence he personally misappropriated funds, but there are certainly monies missing involving cases handled by his law firm, for which he is ultimately responsible," Clark said.

Montelongo, 54, obtained his license to practice law in Nevada in September 2003. According to the State Bar of Nevada's Web site, he received his law degree from the University of Nebraska.


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