Half of serious DUI cases involve repeat offenders

Jordan Eldredge was convicted of drunken driving three times in three years. He was convicted a fourth time about a year before he killed his friend while driving drunk near the university in December 1999.
Michael Lee Evans had drunken-driving convictions in 1991, 1992, 1996 and 2000. But he still got behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Berretta while drunk in July 2003, ran a stop sign near Pyramid Lake and hit a truck, severely injuring a young woman.

And Stephen Scharosch had been caught driving drunk twice before he smashed his Ford Mustang into a minivan on Interstate 80 in May 2002, killing four children, one adult and injuring two others.

Nearly half of the 113 drivers charged with DUI causing death or substantial bodily harm in Washoe County since 2000 had previously been arrested for drunken driving, according to an analysis of records by the Reno Gazette-Journal. Among the other findings:


Almost a quarter of those drivers had multiple drunken-driving arrests.

At least one of these drivers was arrested again for drunken driving after he was released from prison.

Fourteen of the drivers were too young to drink legally in the first place.

Most had blood-alcohol levels more than twice the legal limit of .08 percent.
"That should scare the daylights out of anybody who goes out of their house," said Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, who introduced several bills during the 2009 legislative session aimed at curbing drinking and driving.

"It's unreal how they can even operate a motor vehicle," Manendo said of the high blood-alcohol content levels of some drivers. "That's someone who goes out and drinks all night -- it's not someone who just has a beer with a sandwich."

'Not casual drinkers'

Scharosch's blood-alcohol level was close to the average of .187 percent when he was convicted on two previous drunken-driving charges. It was .17 percent when he killed five family members out of eight, and seriously injured two, in the Interstate 80 crash in 2002.

"I thought I had learned my lesson," Scharosch said, referring to his previous drunken-driving convictions. "I figured it wasn't going to happen again."


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Driver accused of DUI in fatal North Las Vegas crash

North Las Vegas police have arrested a man accused of driving under the influence in a fatal crash earlier this month.

Armando Iribe Jr., 19, was taken to the North Las Vegas Detention Center after the 5:40 p.m. Tuesday arrest, police said. He has been booked on a felony count of DUI with alcohol with death and a count of reckless driving with death.

Iribe was driving a white 1994 Honda Accord with two passengers on Oct. 11 going west on East Lake Mead Boulevard, just west of Belmont Street, when the crash occurred about 1:15 a.m., police said.

A white 1998 Dodge Ram pickup truck driven by a 52-year-old Las Vegas resident was heading east on Lake Mead. Iribe lost control of his Honda as he drove an estimated 77 mph in a 35 mph speed zone, police said. The car hit the pickup head-on, according to police.

One of the passengers in the Accord, 21-year-old Jorge Guerrero of Pacoima, Calif., was thrown from the car and pronounced dead at the scene. The Clark County Coroner's Office ruled the death an accident. Guerrero died from a head injury, a coroner's spokeswoman said.

The second passenger, an 18-year-old Las Vegas resident, was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

This was the third fatal traffic collision in North Las Vegas this year.



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