\n

On July 28, 2006, acclaimed actor and director Mel Gibson was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.\u00a0 Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department arrested Gibson, on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, where he had been driving 84 mph in a 45 mph zone.\u00a0 A breathalyzer test showed his blood-alcohol level to be 0.12% (the California legal limit is 0.08%).\u00a0 In addition to drunk driving, prosecutors charged Gibson with an infraction of having an open bottle of tequila in his car.\u00a0 The arrest was Gibson\u2019s first in California for driving under the influence of alcohol.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors charged Gibson with two misdemeanor counts of drunk driving.\u00a0 Several seasoned DUI attorneys were surprised that an \u201cexcessive speed enhancement\u201d was not filed against Gibson \u2013 a charge that would mandate jail time.\u00a0 Under state law, a driver under the influence whose speed exceeds the posted limit by 20 mph or more on streets or 30 mph on highways faces a minimum of 60 days in jail.\u00a0 Legal analysts agree that the speed enhancement is a common but not automatic charge.<\/p>\n

Gibson was scheduled to be arraigned on September 28, 2006.\u00a0 But, his attorneys decided on \u201cadvancing the case,\u201d meaning to have it resolved before the arraignment date.\u00a0 Legal experts say this is common in such cases.\u00a0 It allowed the case to be resolved without a heavy media swarm.\u00a0 August 18, 2006, Gibson pled \u201cno contest\u201d\u00a0 to one count of driving while having a blood alcohol content higher than .08.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, Gibson was sentenced to three years of \u201csupervised probation,\u201d meaning that he has to go back to court periodically to show he is abiding by the terms of his probation.\u00a0 His drivers license was also restricted for 90 days and he was ordered to undergo a state-mandated alcohol-abuse education program for 3 months.\u00a0 Additionally, he was also sentenced to pay more than $1,600 in fines and fees.<\/p>\n

Gibson has issued two public apologies since his arrest and said he suffered a relapse in his longtime battle with alcoholism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On July 28, 2006, acclaimed actor and director Mel Gibson was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.\u00a0 Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department arrested Gibson, on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, where he had been driving 84 mph …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-most-wanted-actors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1329,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/1329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hollywoodmostwanted.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}