New Year Starts With Unusual DUI Arrests

While city police officers were tackling the typical arrests for DUI in Los Angeles, law enforcement officers in other states were coping with some more atypical incidents.

In Tucson, Arizona, a woman who gained national fame for wearing a colander on her head in her driver’s license picture is getting a bit more (probably unwanted) attention. According to the Arizona Daily Star website, Jessica “Asia” Steinhauser had traveled by car to the offices of her local school district with her 10-year-old daughter in the vehicle. It didn’t take the district staff long to figure out there was a problem; Steinhauser smelled like alcohol and passed out on the office sofa shortly after her arrival. Police arrived at the scene and arrested her.

Steinhauser, a former porn star, wore the colander in her driver’s photo because she claimed to be a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster—a Pastafarian. She said that the Constitution protected her right to wear her “religious headpiece.”
Meanwhile, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, one driver spared the police the trouble of transporting her to the police station for a DUI charge. Courtney E. Debaggis, age 38, had come to the Bourne Bridge Rotary State Police Barracks to bail out two people held there. The Cape News reported that she was unsteady on her feet when she went entered the station lobby, had glassy eyes and smelled of alcohol. Debaggis admitted to police officers there that she had drunk four beers before coming to the station. When they measured her blood alcohol content, it registered .155 on a breathalyzer.

Debaggis certainly made an impression on the troopers; when two entered the building as she was trying to leave, she reportedly said “You don’t have to bring the goons in here.”

It turned out Debaggis had a previous DUI arrest dating back to 2013. In California, a second DUI arrest within 10 years could land Debaggis in county jail for a minimum of 96 hours and a maximum one year. She’d lose her license for two years, end up on probation for three to five years and have to pay fines up to $1,000.

Call Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers to schedule a free consultation with a qualified Los Angeles DUI defense attorney. Mr. Kraut is a Harvard Law School educated ex-prosecutor with nearly 20 years of experience and an excellent track record for getting justice for DUI defendants.