Audio By Carbonatix
The Schmuck of the Week crew tends not to delve too deeply into issues beyond schmuckiness.
But every once in a while, schmucks and important topics intersect — or collide.
Take the question of chronic drunk drivers whose typically modest punishments allow them to violate again and again and again.
A case in point: Colorado’s own Denny Lovern, who had a whopping sixteen DUI arrests as of late 2014 — enough to create a one-man mug shot gallery.
The Lovern example left many readers wondering if Colorado’s drunk-driving laws needed to be strengthened.
But the case of Texas’ Ivy Ray Eberhardt — whose story boasts a significant Colorado connection — has created controversy for very different reasons. After his twelfth bust for driving while intoxicated, a judge sentenced Eberhardt to life in prison — “unheard of punishment,” according to the Conservative Times, whose headline about the matter asks the question, “Was he too harsh?”
The Eberhardt tale comes to us from WFAA-TV in Dallas, which collected a slew of Eberhardt booking pics from over the years.
Here are three examples….
…and three more:
Also included are surveillance pics from Eberhardt’s 2014 arrest in the Texas community of Weatherford.
One shot shows Eberhardt stumbling while trying to complete a sobriety test….
…while another captures an officer showing off three empty whiskey bottles found in his ride:
Eberhardt’s blood-alcohol-content test registered at .30 — nearly four times the legal limit.
“You can be comatose at .30,” prosecutor Jeff Swain told the station, “which is where he was driving down our roads.”
And other roads, too.
Once he’d bonded out following the 2014 bust, Eberhardt reportedly cut off his ankle monitor and drove to Colorado, where he was promptly cuffed for driving drunk. He served nearly a year behind bars in our fair state before being sent back to Texas to face justice for the previous arrest.
The kind just dispensed definitely goes beyond a wrist slap. Eberhardt’s life sentence does leave open the possibility of parole, but since he’s 62 and has already experienced an obvious amount of wear and tear, that may not matter.
In the meantime, Eberhardt won’t be able to hit the highway again here or beyond — at least for now, and possibly forever.
Continue to see WFAA’s report.