Runners-Up: Cardinals’ Josh Hancock, dead, and HBO’s Chris Albrecht, still alive
Runners-up for top story of the month:
St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock, killed when he ran his Ford Explorer into a tow truck that had stopped ahead of him in the left lane of a St. Louis freeway at 12:35 a.m. The tow truck had its lights flashing, Hancock was believed to be driving at or barely above the speed limit and there were no alcoholic beverage containers found in the vehicle. However, the fact that he headed straight for the flashing lights suggested there might be more to the story.
Years ago, the California Highway Patrol was baffled over the fact that many DUIs ran smack into patrol cars on which lights were flashing. They finally figured out that DUIs often become mesmerized by such lights and head right at them. Unfortunately, many emergency vehicles still flash lights from behind and this one, in the traffic lane behind a disabled Geo Prism, had no choice. This proved to be fatal for Hancock, whose BAL was reported a few days after the incident at .157 per cent, almost twice the legal limit–and an almost foolproof indicator of alcoholism. He was on his cell phone telling a female acquaintance he would meet her at a bar he was heading to when the accident occurred. Marijuana and a glass pipe used for smoking it were found in the vehicle as well.
Although his teammates and friends claimed to have thought only the best of Hancock (nice guy and all) and at least one teammate refuted the idea that Hancock had a “drinking problem,” there were at least two reported warning signs of alcoholism (other than the fact that he would attempt to drive at a .157). He was involved in an accident with a tractor-trailer at 5:30 a.m. three days earlier, in which the front bumper of his SUV was torn off. He’d also overslept a few days before and showed up late at the ballpark for a day game. Hancock admitted to having arisen on what he called the “20th call” from teammates concerned about him.
The other interesting point for the addiction-aware is that darned Geo Prism. Just what was it doing, stopped, in the left lane–and why didn’t the driver pull off the road with little or no traffic in the middle of the night? (One of the clues to DUI I thought of after Get Out of the Way! How to Identify and Avoid a Driver Under the Influence went to press is, “Stopped in the middle of a freeway.”) The irony is that Josh Hancock, a victim of his own alcoholism, may also have been victim to someone else’s, without which he might be alive today.
HBO chairman and chief executive Chris Albrecht, 54, arrested at 3 a.m. after an altercation outside of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas after the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jr. boxing match, which went down as HBO’s most successful pay-per-view ever. Officers said they had to physically break Albrecht’s grip around the neck of his companion, Karla Jensen, 37, a correspondent for HBO and Telemundo, who was reportedly dragged by the throat toward the valet parking station. Officers said he was unsteady on his feet, “reeked” of alcohol and said of the woman, “She pissed me off.”
In a letter to colleagues at HBO, Albrecht confessed to having relapsed about two years ago after being “a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 13 years.” The last time he got sober was shortly after allegedly assaulting a female subordinate when she told him she had been dating someone else. HBO hushed up the episode with a confidentiality agreement and personal injury settlement of at least $400,000, which didn’t surface until now. While the affair ended Albrecht’s first marriage, he continued as the creative genius and force behind much of HBO’s original programming, including “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Albrecht has been ousted as head of HBO, which could cost the parent company, Time Warner Inc, dearly.
In his letter to co-workers, Albrecht expressed hope that he would return to his post. He wrote, “I won’t let you down again.” The questions a Drug Addiction Recognition Expert(TM) might ask are if he relapsed two years ago, why didn’t anyone notice? Why wasn’t anything done about it? And how many other relationships did he ruin along the way?
Broward County, Florida, Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda, 59, apologizing to the court and his colleagues across the state while pleading to a misdemeanor charge of smoking marijuana last March. The arrest of the family court judge took place three weeks after he handled part of the paternity battle over Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter. He was reportedly smoking in a public park near about 15 children, who according to Korda’s attorney were unaware of and unaffected by the judge’s conduct. The attorney didn’t comment on the unmistakable aroma of the burning weed. The state’s judicial watchdog will soon be ruling on whether Judge Korda should be removed from the bench, depending partly on his response to such questions as where he got the dope and how often he smokes it.