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Thursday, November 4, 2010
David Cassidy, former teen heartthrob and star of the '70s TV series "The Partridge Family," was charged with driving under the influence after his car was seen weaving and nearly causing an accident on the Florida Turnpike, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The 60-year-old actor's car was stopped around 6 p.m. Wednesday, according to the FHP.
The FHP says Cassidy told a trooper that he had had a glass of wine at lunch and a hydrocodone pill at 3:30 p.m. Troopers reported finding a half-empty bottle of bourbon in the back seat of the car.
The FHP report states that Cassidy failed a field sobriety test, and breath tests at the St. Lucie County jail showed his blood-alcohol content at 0.139 and 0.141, above Florida's legal limit of 0.08.
The actor previously acknowledged grappling with a drinking problem.
"I could go for years without drinking a drop or I'd have a couple of glasses of wine and then go to sleep but I could live without it," he told the Daily Mail in 2008. " And then, suddenly, it became a struggle not to, and drinking became a habit."
But a spokesperson for Cassidy, who posted $350 bail and was released from jail early Thursday, insists the actor wasn't drunk.
"He would never jeopardize anyone on the road, and he would not have been driving had he not had to go to a funeral," Jo-Ann Geffen told TMZ. "He's never been arrested in his life before for anything."
Drunk driving is a huge problem in the U.S. Every day, 32 Americans die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2008 alone, 11,773 people died in alcohol-impaired accidents, accounting for nearly one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S.
Read more:David Cassidy, "Partridge Family" Star, Nabbed for DUI: Was It Booze - or Pain Pills?
