David Cassidy on the Web
Hearing postponed in DUI case of former teen heartthrob David Cassidy
Entertainer lives in Fort Lauderdale
January 19, 2011
www.sun-sentinel.com
FORT PIERCE -
David Cassidy, the singer/actor/teen heartthrob of the 1970s, is expected to enter a guilty or no contest plea and be sentenced Feb. 16 to a DUI charge.
At a hearing Tuesday at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, County Judge Cliff Barnes announced that a scheduled docket sounding for Cassidy had been postponed, but the celebrity best known for his role in the television show "The Partridge Family" was expected to enter a written plea on the charges, which also include failure to maintain a single lane and an open container violation, at the next round of docket soundings, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Feb. 16.
Barnes said Cassidy, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, would be allowed to skip the hearing "just like everyone else charged with a misdemeanor and with no prior record" and have the plea entered by his attorney.
Stay on top of the news: Get breaking news alerts sent directly to your phone
Turning to reporters and television cameras along a courtroom wall in anticipation of Cassidy's appearance, Barnes said, "There likely will be no movie star [at the Feb. 16 hearing], but there likely will be a movie star's lawyer."
Cassidy, 60, was arrested about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 3 after a Florida Highway Patrol trooper saw his white 2008 Mercedes weaving in southbound traffic on Florida's Turnpike just north of Okeechobee Road west of Fort Pierce. The trooper reported Cassidy's car veered off the roadway and another vehicle had to brake "abruptly" to avoid a crash.
Cassidy said he was on prescription medications and told the trooper he'd had a glass of wine around lunch time and took "a hydrocodone" about 3:30 p.m. After performing field sobriety exercises, Cassidy was deemed to be impaired; and breath tests taken about 8:30 p.m. measured Cassidy's blood-alcohol content at 0.139 percent and 0.141 percent, over the 0.08 percent legal limit.
Investigators found a half-empty bottle of bourbon in the right back seat floorboard of his vehicle.
