Former Newport Beach city attorney David Hunt was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to drunken driving and crashing into a parked car in September.
The 53-year-old Santa Ana resident also must pay restitution and $390 in fines and enter a three-month program for first-time alcohol offenders. The judge dismissed a second count of driving with a blood alcohol content of .08% or more.
]
Newport Beach police arrested Hunt after the car was hit in a parking lot at
the west end of Ford Road near Mesa View and Bonita Canyon Sports Park and five minutes from his new office at Friedman Stroffe & Gerard, P.C. law firm in Irvine. Hunt was not hurt, but the
car
he hit was damaged.
It was the former city official's second arrest in two years. Santa
Ana police arrested him in March 2010 on suspicion of domestic
violence in an
altercation he had at home with his wife and son. The Newport Beach
City Council placed Hunt on administrative leave as the Orange County
District Attorney's office (OCDA) conducted a felony spousal abuse
investigation that resulted in no charges being filed. The City Council voted in June 2010 to allow Hunt to return to the City
Attorney's office.
He retired in August of this year, but in late September he was re-hired as an outside consultant by the city. Councilwoman Leslie Daigle
was the only member of the panel to oppose Hunt's rehiring, and she
objected strongly, noting that his contract called for $120,000 per
quarter, or $480,000 annually.
The lucrative consulting contract was nullified shortly after Hunt's second arrest.
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.