Beverly Hills DUI Defense Attorney

January 29, 2013

Arrested for DUI in Hollywood? The Saturation Patrol Might Have Gotten You!

If you were recently stopped and arrested for driving under the influence in Hollywood at a checkpoint or outside a bar or a club, odds are that you encountered police on one of the following locations:

• Alvarado Street and Beverly Boulevard
• Roscoe Boulevard and Noble Avenue
• 77th Street
• Atwater Village
If you indeed got arrested at one of those places, you might be wondering… how did we know that?

The answer is simple: a recent LA Weekly article published the Los Angeles Police Department’s most recent saturation patrols and checkpoint planning. These patrols are designed to nab drivers who are out partying. Note the hours of the patrols (e.g. 7 p.m. to 3 a.m.; 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., etc). These hours are the most “fecund,” if you’re trying to find and arrest drivers under the influence of alcohol in Hollywood or basically anywhere else.

What exactly happens at a DUI checkpoint? Or what’s supposed to happen?

First, police will look for symptoms of Hollywood DUI, which can include but are not limited to: slurred speech, loss of balance, trouble answering officer questions, incongruencies in your answers, strange emotional behavior, bloodshot eyes, loss of words (aphasia), inability of your pupils to follow a light (a.k.a. failure of the horizontal gaze Nystagmus test), and an odor of alcohol on your breath.

These “symptoms” may seem obvious enough. If you saw someone exhibiting some or all of them, you might easily suspect that that person was under the influence.

However, the situation is not always so clear cut!

Imagine you’re driving home on Hollywood Boulevard at 3 a.m. after a long TV show shoot. Your brain is totally fried because you’ve been screaming at your line producer all day. You’re not thinking clearly because the caffeine from all those grande mocha lattes has worn off. So you make up a bad lane change.

And then a police officer stops you and pulls you over.

Even though you haven’t touched alcohol in days, surprisingly enough, you exhibit many so-called “classic” symptoms of DUI, such as bloodshot eyes, inability to remember words, irascibility, perhaps even trouble balancing. If you haven’t eaten in a while, you may look bad or stumble due to blood sugar issues.

Believe it or not, even if you haven’t consumed alcohol, if you’ve been producing ketone bodies – i.e. if you’re diabetic or on a very low calorie or low carb diet – you may register as positive for alcohol consumption on a breathalyzer.

Of course, your situation is possibly different.

Maybe you did indeed drink alcohol — or even do marijuana or take prescription drugs — before you hopped into your vehicle. You want to minimize your penalties and optimize your chances for getting gentle treatment from the court system.

Every Hollywood DUI defendant’s case is a unique puzzle.

You need customized, insightful, and knowledgeable help with the defense. Fortunately, you have a possible ally: Harvard Law School educated Hollywood DUI criminal defense attorney, Michael Kraut. He and his esteemed team can help you battle back against your charges and regain peace of mind.

January 14, 2013

Beverly Hills DUI News Blogger: Gérard Depardieu a No Show at DUI Trial, As He Escalates His Bizarre Behavior

by Michael Kraut

This Beverly Hills DUI blog is not above covering international news, especially news that concerns celebrities like renowned French actor Gérard Depardieu – perhaps the greatest French actor of all time.

The 64-year-old Depardieu, however, has also had a colorful, if bizarre, recent history of criminal wrongdoings. Two years ago, he was arrested after he urinated in his seat on a plane, despite the pleas of fellow passengers and flight attendants. More recently, last November 29th, he drove his scooter while under the influence of alcohol to the tune of over four times the legal limit!

If you’re arrested for a way-over-the-limit DUI in Beverly Hills, you can be hit with additional penalties, such as a harsher jail sentence, longer license suspension, more alcohol school, and other sundry penalties. According to news sources, Depardieu could have pled guilty to the charges, got dinged with a small fine, and been on his way.

Instead, the eclectic actor absconded from the country to Belgium. Not only did he ditch his January 8 hearing, but he now faces more serious criminal charges, which could net him up to two years behind bars on top of fines totaling nearly $6,000.

The actor’s citizenship changes require a flowchart to track. Last December, he moved to Belgium to protest the high tax rates in France, prompting the leader of France’s Socialist party to call him names. Meanwhile, Depardieu recently accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to make him a citizen of Russia, and he may move to Mordovia to become that region’s Minister of Culture. Depardieu released a statement from Switzerland (confused yet?) regarding his status: “I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I’ll probably have dual Belgium nationality.”

Good grief.

Obviously, Depardieu’s legal fate – along with where he will ultimately reside – remain up in the air. But his legal situation is certainly fascinating. Of course, if you’re facing a Beverly Hills DUI charge, you’re much less concerned about being entertained and much more concerned about finding an appropriate, sharp Los Angeles DUI lawyer to deal with your charges in a sensible way.

The team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers can help you. Michael Kraut is a highly esteemed lawyer with a great track record. Connect with him and his team for a free consultation today.

December 19, 2012

A Pair of Los Angeles DUI Charges for Michael Madsen: “Kill Bill” Actor Busted in Pontiac GTO on the PCH in Malibu

by Michael Kraut

54-year-old actor, Michael Madsen, was arrested recently for driving under the influence in Los Angeles – out in Malibu on the PCH. According to news reports, police officers pulled him over after they saw his fire red Pontiac GTO swerving erratically.

Madsen allegedly failed his Los Angeles DUI field sobriety tests and blew a BAC level of 0.21%. As regular readers of this blog know, the legal limit, per California Vehicle Code Section 23152 (b), is 0.08%. That means he was more than 2.5 times over, if the breathalyzer was correct!

Madsen’s Los Angeles DUI defense attorney, meanwhile, told reporters that Madsen “believes that the breathalyzer test was flawed.” According to TMZ, the Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs’ actor needed to go to the hospital instead of to jail due to a medical problem. Madsen had to make a $15,000 bail. He currently faces two DUI counts. If convicted of both, he faces maximum penalties of two years behind bars, even though this is his first offense.

Madsen’s legal plight illustrates an important truism about Los Angeles DUI defense: Even if you have never done anything bad in your life, prosecutors can still “throw the book at you,” even if you didn’t hurt anyone or do severe damage.

Of course, if you DID hurt someone, prosecutors can “level up” the charges against you and hit you with counts pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 23153 (a) and 23153 (b) – the so-called injury DUI laws. What would ordinarily be a misdemeanor might be reclassified as a felony, for instance.

Likewise, if you caused serious property damage, resisted arrest, or engaged in multiple criminal acts simultaneously (such as assaulting a police officer, leaving the scene of an accident, etc.), your legal situation could become more complex, and the potential penalties could be far more dire.

This isn’t to say that you will be seriously punished — or even that you’ll need to plead guilty to the charges against you. A smart, strategic investigation of your Los Angeles DUI charges can lead to surprising and convincing defenses. For instance, in Madsen’s case, perhaps the breathalyzer test indeed WAS flawed. For instance, maybe he was suffering from diabetes or on a special low-carb or low-calorie diet, in which case the ketones on his breath might have artificially escalated his BAC readings.

In any case, the team here at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Los Angeles has the capability, experience, and wherewithal to help you construct an articulate, effective defense. Get in touch with Attorney Kraut and his empathetic, experienced team today for a free consultation.

December 12, 2012

Nothing in the World Can Possibly Prepare You for Your Beverly Hill DUI Experience

by Michael Kraut

Whether you were pulled over for Beverly Hills DUI on the corner of Doheny and Wilshire near CVS or stopped on Beverly Drive right near where Islands used to be, you recognize that you’re in serious legal trouble. You need immediate assistance in diverse areas of your life.

Even if “all was well” in your world prior to your Beverly Hills DUI stop, your charges could wreak havoc on your life. You could lose your California driver’s license, get clobbered with massive fees and court costs, and find yourself serving a not-insubstantial amount of time behind bars. If you injured someone while driving DUI, prosecutors could ratchet up your charges pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 23153(a) and 23153(b) — escalate your misdemeanor charges into felony counts. And we haven’t even begun to talk about the longer-term repercussions regarding your professional life, your intimate relationships, your risk for escalated penalties if you ever break the law again, and spikes in your auto insurance rates.

Unfortunately, there is no way to know how this experience will transform your life, career, and capacity to deal with challenges. However, you can take the first step towards transforming this difficult experience into one of growth, self-compassion, and learning. Consider the DUI as an obstacle to a better life as opposed to the end of the line. You survived the event. You have the mental capacity to understand these words. So you already need to consider yourself extremely lucky. Many people who drive DUI in Beverly Hills just like you did (or allegedly did) never survive to get a second chance, get rehabilitated, and make amends to people they hurt or repair the damage they caused.

Attorney Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers in Beverly Hills would be happy to talk to you about what you can do to start to construct a systematic, intelligent defense to the charges against you. Attorney Kraut is a former prosecutor with a long and detailed history of success. The Harvard Law School educated Kraut also has lots of connections as well as deep, empirically validated insights into how to solve tricky legal issues. Connect with his team today to understand your rights.

November 21, 2012

Driving Under the Influence Charge for Bobby Brown: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year for ‘My Prerogative’ Singer

by Michael Kraut

2012 will not go down as a very good year for recording artist Bobby Brown, who just got arrested (yet again!) for driving under the influence in Los Angeles, several months after losing his former beloved, Whitney Houston.

The 43-year-old Brown pled no contest to a DUI charge back in March and managed to get himself out of rehab in August. Just weeks after getting out of rehab, however, he got stopped in the Topanga area: the celebrity gossip website TMZ reported that Brown had been seen weaving between lanes. The strange behavior prompted a police cruiser to stop him under suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. He also exhibited symptoms of LA DUI and had an odor of alcohol. He failed his field sobriety tests and got booked into a jail in Van Nuys.

Brown was released on his own recognizance. Hopefully, he’ll get the help he needs to manage his multiple crises. On top of dealing with the DUI charges and the death of his ex-wife, Brown also received a tepid reception to his new album — the first he released in over a decade and a half.

Multiple stresses can lead to helplessness
One of the most common beliefs about alcohol addiction is that drivers who drive DUI when they ‘know they shouldn’t’ are somehow ‘giving in’ and behaving in a weak manner. Alternative theories about addiction, however, suggest that the drive to consume alcohol or drugs — or engage in other reckless, negligent, or dangerous behaviors — may stem not from a weak constitution but rather from a distorted drive to reassert control in a chaotic world.

Think about your own life. Think about your own Los Angeles DUI arrest. How did you feel in the days and hours leading up to your arrest? Did you feel completely in control of your life? Or did you feel out of control and helpless? Odds are, you felt that latter.

This is an important revelation, since it suggests that drivers who are arrested for crimes like DUI may need help gaining control over their lives and becoming more empowered. Instead, they are often counseled to ‘surrender’ their power and beat themselves up. The criminal justice system certainly assists in this negative regard by condemning drivers to punishments that may or may not fit the crime.

All of this is not to say that you may not bear culpability for what happened – or responsibility for your life.

However, it may be misguided to treat your problem as a simple problem of “lack of will.” The diverse forces that motivate your behaviors, actions, and habits can be complex stuff, indeed. These forces can touch upon psychological factors as well as physical factors.

What you need now is a thorough, comprehensive strategy to assess where you are at, legally speaking and otherwise, in the wake of the DUI arrest.

Get in touch with Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer Michael Kraut of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers for effective, compassionate, and insightful guidance regarding your charges and your life in general.

November 16, 2012

Lakers Ebanks Busted for Driving Under the Influence in Hollywood – More Woes for L.A. Basketball

by Michael Kraut

Devin Ebanks, a reserve forward for the L.A. Lakers, got busted for Hollywood DUI last week, according to CHP records.

The 23-year-old was stopped at Hollywood Boulevard and El Centro Avenue at around 2:30 in the morning, after an officer saw him commit a traffic violation. Ebanks was later released on $5,000 bail. Apparently, he had just been chilling out at a Roxbury night club to celebrate a woman’s birthday. (He told his followers on Twitter to join him at the club.)

Notwithstanding the arrest, Ebanks managed to play for the Lakers against the Golden State Warriors the very next day; he’s on contract with them for $1.4 million — an agreement he made back in August. Ebanks has only averaged an anemic 2.5 points in 2012, however, and he is still reeling from accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2011.

DUI in Hollywood Defenses

How should someone like Ebanks build and follow through on a Los Angeles DUI defense? You need to take a look at the charges in context. For instance:

• Does the defendant have any prior criminal convictions, especially for past DUIs?

The more DUI convictions you rack up, the more ‘legal ammunition’ prosecutors have to throw at you. For instance, if you get convicted for two+ Hollywood DUIs within 10 years, prosecutors can try to transform a misdemeanor DUI charge into a felony charge;
• What happened during and after the stop/accident/arrest?

Were you stopped and booked at a checkpoint? Did you get into an accident before getting arrested? Did police put you through a field sobriety test and arrest you after seeing you exhibit symptoms of Hollywood DUI? How were the DUI tests calibrated and conducted? Were there police errors? Were there any factors that could have thrown off your breathalyzer reading?

• Did complicating or quirky factors play a role?

For instance, did someone else crash into your car or cause the accident somehow? Did your vehicle malfunction and cause you to swerve off the road, thus prompting the police attention that led to your Hollywood DUI arrest?

An efficient, smart DUI defense strategy

Hollywood DUI criminal defense lawyer, Michael Kraut, of the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers, and his team are standing by to help you understand your challenges and construct an intelligent response. Get in touch with Attorney Kraut today for a free consultation.

October 22, 2012

Failed A Beverly Hills DUI Breathalyzer Test? Maybe It Wasn’t the Alcohol That Did It! (Wait Till’ You See What This Woman Drank…)

by Michael Kraut

As someone who recently failed a breathalyzer test for driving under the influence in Beverly Hills, you are probably feeling ashamed, humiliated, and terrified about the potential legal consequences.

Even if you didn’t cause any damage or hurt anyone – and thus you cannot be subjected to punishments per California Vehicle Code section 23153(a) or 23153(b) – you no doubt fear going to jail, having your license stripped, and paying potentially thousands of dollars in fines and fees (and that’s the tip of the iceberg).

On the other hand, you may be prematurely judging yourself as “guilty.”

In fact, a surprising amount of research suggests that many breathalyzer tests for Beverly Hills DUI and DUI elsewhere, can be flawed and potentially extremely misleading. A variety of factors can lead to false positives. For instance, if you are diabetic, you may wind up in a pathological metabolic state known as ketoacidosis, in which you produce compound known as ketones; these can cause a “positive” to register on a Beverly Hills DUI breath test.

A similar “skewing towards the DUI positive” can happen if you’re on a restricted carbohydrate diet. Low carb dieters often enter a metabolic state known as ketosis, during which they produce similar compounds to the compounds that diabetics produce when they are in ketoacidosis. In fact, one of the big (and misguided) criticisms of low carb diets has to do with confusion over healthy ketosis and unhealthy ketoacidosis. These are actually two very different metabolic states.

Getting back to the point… many different things can throw off a breathalyzer reading, including what you have recently eaten, how the officer calibrated the machine, how deeply you blow into the machine, and so forth.

Sometimes people do really weird things that can ALSO influence BAC readings.

Consider, for instance, a crazy story reported out of Middletown, Connecticut, where a local woman nearly crashed her car on October 5th after losing control. Local police put her through the paces of a field sobriety test and also gave her a blood alcohol test. They found that she had a BAC of 0.17% — which, as regular readers of our Beverly Hills DUI lawyer blog know, is over twice the legal limit for DUI here in Southern California, per CVC 23152(b).

What’s interesting about this woman is that she drank half a bottle of hand sanitizer before getting behind the wheel.

You read that right: half a bottle of hand sanitizer. Yikes!

According to reports, the amount of alcohol she consumed was equal to 32 shots of vodka. No wonder she had a BAC of 0.17%! One wonders whether the woman suffered from a condition known as Pica, which is a disorder characterized by a craving to eat nonfood items, such as sand, dirt, plastic, metal, and all sorts of other crazy stuff.

In any event, if you need help dealing with your Beverly Hills DUI case, get in touch with attorney Michael Kraut today to set up a free and thorough case consultation.

September 12, 2012

Beverly Hills DUI Cop Arrested for Driving Under the Influence… And Crashing into a House While Doing So!

by Michael Kraut

If you’ve recently been charged with a Beverly Hills DUI, you can take some solace from strange news out of Simi Valley. Last Tuesday, an off-duty police officer for the City of Beverly Hills got arrested for DUI after he smashed his pick-up into power pole and house.

The force of the crash was so intense that his vehicle flipped over and landed on a wall. 42-year-old officer Jeffrey Sweet smashed up his car at Blackstock and Royal Avenue in Simi Valley. He complained about pain to responding officers and got treated at a local hospital in Simi Valley. Fortunately, no one else suffered injuries.

Sweet also exhibited the classic symptoms associated with Beverly Hills DUI, allegedly, and he was booked into jail in Ventura County after he got cleared from the hospital. The truck severed a gas line, stimulating a local evacuation. Investigators think that the officer failed to see a curve on Blackstock Avenue. The BHPD helped the Simi Valley police deal with the situation.

If you’ve been arrested for driving under the influence in Beverly Hills, you can probably relate to Sweet’s frustrations and challenges ahead. It is indeed fortunate that no one got hurt in this crash – if you did hurt someone, even mildly, your charges could be escalated from a simple misdemeanor to a felony, pursuant to California Vehicle Code Sections 22153(a) or 22153(b).

Other factors that could complicate your legal situation include:

• Whether it’s your first time arrested for Beverly Hills DUI or whether you are a recidivist;
• Whether you’ve been arrested and convicted of other criminal charges unrelated to driving under the influence;
• How you behaved after you were stopped by police – that is, were you belligerent or did you try to flee the scene;
• Did you cooperate with officers and rescue workers?
• Just how ìunder the influenceî were you?
• How powerful is the evidence that you, indeed, violated the law?

For instance, just because you failed a breathalyzer test – or even a blood test – does not mean that the test effectively measured your degree of DUI. An experienced Beverly Hills DUI criminal defense lawyer, like the Harvard Law School educated Michael Kraut, 8484 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 660B Beverly Hills, CA 90211-3220 Phone: (310) 550-6935, can help you develop a powerful strategy to manage all of your charges and your legal journey ahead. Connect with attorney Kraut today to get experienced assistance.

September 5, 2012

Serious Los Angeles DUI Drama – Was Conservative Costa Mesa Councilman’s DUI Stop a Set-Up?

by Michael Kraut

Some crazy news rippled through the Los Angeles DUI legal community last week. After Costa Mesa Councilman, Jim Righeimer, got pulled over on suspicion of DUI, some sleuths believe the stop was actually set up by his political opposition! The allegations concerned a 9-11 call placed by Chris Lanzillo, a PI who works for a law firm that represents, among other groups, the Costa Mesa Police Union.

Here are the key elements of this riveting story…
• Righeimer had been hanging out at Skosh Monahan, a tavern owned by a fellow councilman for Costa Mesa, Gary Monahan.
• A 9-11 call (placed by Lanzillo) said that he witnessed Righeimer stumbling out of the tavern after drinking too much and then swerving away in his car.
• Righeimer was ultimately pulled over and given a field sobriety test, which he passed.
• An investigation from the County Prosecutor’s Office exposed a lot of holes in the 9-11 caller’s story. For one, surveillance footage showed Righeimer leaving the pub, looking sober and surefooted. Furthermore, a white SUV was seen following Righeimer from the tavern to his house – certainly a creepy development.
• Lanzillo’s behavior has caused problems for his law firm, Lackie Dammeier & McGill – for one, the Costa Mesa Police Union severed ties with the big firm after the story broke.

Not every Los Angeles DUI situation is a “conspiracy” – but there may be far more to your case than meets the eye.

Odds are very high that your Los Angeles DUI arrest was not “set up” in any way. However, the techniques and methodology that police used to investigate your behavior may have been less than ideal.

For instance, your Los Angeles breathalyzer test results might have been compromised due to:

• Something you ate (especially if you are diabetic);
• Medications you’re taking;
• Calibration errors;
• Police procedural errors
• Simply bad timing.

As we have discussed at length before on this blog, the depth of the breath you blow into a breathalyzer can radically change your reading. So if you blew “extra deep” into the breathalyzer, you may have registered a number that tipped over the 0.08% threshold for Los Angeles DUI but ultimately should be considered a false positive.

To build a strategic and fair-minded defense, you might want to talk to a highly respected Los Angeles DUI criminal defense lawyer at the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers. (6255 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1520, Los Angeles, California 90028) Mr. Kraut is a Harvard Law School trained attorney with a deep and diverse background in DUI cases, and he can help you come up with and implement a strategic plan to help you move beyond your arrest.

August 1, 2012

Beverly Hills DUI Epidemic – 3 NFLers Busted for DUI in a Single Week, Brings Total Since Super Bowl Up to 27 Separate Arrests!

by Michael Kraut

If you’ve recently gotten in trouble for a Beverly Hills DUI, you have company, in the form of 27 National Football League professional athletes. That’s right. Since the conclusion of the Super Bowl on February 5th, there have been 27 DUI arrests involving professional NFL athletes. Things really started to heat up in mid to late July, when three separate NFL DUI arrests hit in one week. The culprits: Kenny Britt of Titans, Robert Quinn of the St. Louis Rams, and Marshawn Lynch of the Sea Hawks.

In a series of posts, we’re going to address these arrests, both specifically and in a larger context. What might they mean for NFL? More importantly, what lessons can you learn from this trend to help you deal with your Beverly Hills DUI charges, put your life back together, and avoid trouble in the future.

In today’s post, we’ll take a closer look at Britt’s arrest.

According to news reports, the Titans receiver was tooling around Fort Campbell, Kentucky with teammate Tommie Campbell, when he was stopped at a security gate, tested and arrested for driving under the influence.

Britt was no stranger to brushes with law enforcement.

Last April, he got busted in New Jersey after speeding 20 miles over the speed limit and trying to elude an officer. His charges were ultimately reduced down to a fine and misdemeanor. But he got a stern warning from the League. Prior to that, he had been arrested on marijuana charges, resisting arrest, participating in a bar fight, failing to pay a promised bail, and a motley assortment of other unpleasantries. Sports watchers suspect that Britt’s punishment this time will be more severe – he will likely get a multiple game suspension on top of other punishments.

Fortunately, his DUI did not result in anyone getting seriously hurt or killed. If you do injure someone while DUI, you can face felony charges per California Vehicle Code Sections 23153(a) or 23153(b). If convicted, you could lose many rights, face over a year in jail, and be subject to other life altering (and not in a good way) restrictions and penalties.

Furthermore, if your Beverly Hills DUI was not your first brush with the law, prosecutors might go especially hard on you.

What can you do to manage your legal challenges?

Connect today with an experienced professional with the Kraut Criminal & DUI Lawyers (8484 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 660B Beverly Hills, CA 90211-3220 Phone: (310) 550-6935). Attorney Michael Kraut is a Beverly Hills DUI criminal defense attorney who spent well over a decade on the prosecutorial side before switching over to represent defendants like you. He understands how prosecutors think and work, and he can help you devise and execute the most appropriate strategy for your defense.