All things considered, Bell's former city manager probably preferred being in a Westminster courtroom today.
Being convicted of driving
under the influence of alcohol with a .28 blood alcohol level and
crashing into his Huntington Beach neighbor's mailbox surely beats tar and feathering any day.
Robert Adrian Rizzo, 56, pleaded guilty to a court offer to one misdemeanor
count each of DUI and driving with a
blood alcohol level of .08 percent or more with a sentencing enhancement
for having a blood alcohol level of .20 percent or more. The wide-faced one's sentence after the jump . . .
]
Rizzo was sentenced to complete a nine-month first-offender alcohol awareness program and 10 days of community service.
That almost breaks down to a month for each $100,000 he made annually as tiny Bell's top paid exec.
He was still employed by the city around 10 p.m. March 6 when he drove to his Surf City estate under the influence of booze.
His calculations were as messed up as his taxpayer-paid pension package, as Rizzo unintentionally passed his casa and crashed into his neighbor's mailbox while attempting to enter his driveway.
Buck up, Bobby: There are folks in Bell wishing it would have been off a cliff.
Witnesses called 9-1-1, presumably not to report a beached whale despite the photographic evidence displayed in the above booking and wedding shots.
When confronted by Huntington Beach cops, Rizzo displayed blood-shot and watery eyes, slurred speech, unstable balance, and he emitted a strong odor of alcohol and unbridled greed on his breath.
OK, I just made up the greed part.
“Rizzo's balance was so unsteady that officers stopped him from completing his field sobriety tests for his safety,” reports the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Really? Was that the reason? Or were officers afraid they'd have to lift his fat ass up?
Rizzo blew a .28 that night, more than three times the legal limit.
Here's a wild guess at his drink of choice: Jack and cake.
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.
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