Posted on 01/27/2004 4:37:48 AM PST by apillar
After icy weather near Nitro forced Powerball multimillionaire Jack Whittaker off the road, the State Police say they found him drunk and slumped over the steering wheel of his dark green Cadillac.
Whittaker, who hit the $314.9 million Powerball jackpot on Christmas 2002, was charged Sunday with drunken driving.
Whittaker said he was on his way to Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center when he pulled off Interstate 64 near Nitro because ice was covering the roads.
“I’m nowhere near intoxicated,” Whittaker told WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Sunday as police escorted him into Kanawha County Magistrate Court.
But State Police Trooper B.R. Morris wrote in his report that Whittaker failed three field sobriety tests and registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.190, nearly twice the legal limit of 0.10.
Whittaker, a Scott Depot resident, apparently told police he had a drink of alcohol earlier Sunday, but that it had been awhile.
“I wasn’t driving . . . absolutely wasn’t driving,” Whittaker told WSAZ. “I was parked along the side of the road with no keys in the car. And they don’t have the right to arrest me for drunk driving if I don’t have that.”
In the report, Morris said he “attempted to wake the defendant up numerous times. Eventually he woke up and I asked him for his driver’s license.”
Morris also said, “The keys were in the ignition, and the vehicle was running.”
Whittaker was released after John K. Jarvis, a Charleston private investigator, posted a $150 cash bond, according to court records. Whittaker faces up to six months in jail and a $500 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor DUI charge.
The arrest was Whittaker’s second this year. He was arraigned Jan. 6 on charges of trying to hit and threatening to kill Todd Parsons, the manager of a St. Albans bar, after reportedly being banned from the establishment.
Whittaker faces up to six months in jail and a $100 fine if convicted on those charges.
Whittaker received a one-time, $113 million lump-sum lottery payment and spent $14 million establishing the Jack Whittaker Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to help West Virginians find jobs, buy food or receive an education.
“It’s been a rough few weeks,” Whittaker told the television station on Sunday. “It doesn’t bother me because I can tell everyone to kiss off. But my wife, she’s having a hard time with it.
“I just keep on doing what I’m doing and tell everyone my personal life is my own business.”
Same here. But the problem with that theory is that I can't stand the taste of alcohol (except for the occasional single-malt Scotch) even in the best of times. So if I were to **** it away, I would have to be stone-cold sober while doing it.
Soooo much free time.. I think I'd rather work, although winning a moderate sum (say 500,000 or so) would be nice-- I could start/buy my own business, and work for myself.
My little town so desperately needs a decent library. The one we have is about the size of a single-wide mobile home. 10 hard-backed chairs and maybe 1000 books. Its ridiculous - how nice it would be to have a first-class library with Internet access, a children's area, conference rooms, guest speakers, and LOTS of books in here. I could happily work there to the end of my days, playing the male version of the "library lady" I remember from when I was a kid.
Absolutely! Charity begins at home.
The best way to spend lottery money is to start viable businesses, hire the best to run them, giving locals jobs, and helping to raise local tax revenues in the process. Also, start funding non-standard education - self paced learning labs so that the gems don't become dulled by the public education system. If only a few graduate with top honors and go on to do great things, a percentage of those will return to their community and pass on the benevolence.
Keeping the true bums out of the library is the messy part. Make it a private library so you can toss the reeking pedos out.
Keeping the true bums out of the library is the messy part. Make it a private library so you can toss the reeking pedos out.
Good point. That, and keeping pr0n surfers off the Internet terminals, are two valid, major concerns. Most of the bums tend to migrate to the larger cities anyway, so that might not be much of a problem here in this small town.
A private operation might be the way to go - maybe charge a dollar for a lifetime library card, with cards available only to verifiable street addresses.
that would make it a lot harder!
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