Suspect’s Aliases, Drunk-Driving Arrests Pile Up : Jailed: Motorist using several names may have been arrested as many as five times since May on suspicion of being inebriated.

North County law enforcement officials had arrested Vidal Ortiz on suspicion of drunk driving. Juan Lopez-Vasquez, too, as well as Juan Gonzalez on a couple of occasions.

Then, earlier this month, Lopez-Vasquez was arrested in Fallbrook for allegedly trying to use his own vehicle to run a female motorist off the road. He allegedly hit the arresting deputy in the chest and then was charged with battery on a police officer.

This time he landed in jail.

Only then did prosecutors in the district attorney’s office in Vista realize that Ortiz and Gonzalez and Lopez-Vasquez were one and the same man. As they compared the cases that were piling up on their desks, they realized he had been arrested five times for alleged drunk driving since May 21--four times alone in September, including arrests on back-to-back nights by the same California Highway Patrol officer.

On top of all this, Ortiz--as prosecutors have come to call him despite the aliases--had been arrested and convicted for drunk driving twice in 1988 and once again in 1989, again using various names, their own records check showed.

Here, authorities say, is a man who only through the grace of God hasn’t injured or killed someone on North County’s highways--and they hope to keep him off the street and in state prison for the next eight years.

This morning, Ortiz will be in court for his preliminary hearing, where prosecutors hope to provide enough evidence to force him to stand trial in Superior Court for multiple counts of felony drunk driving as well as other charges. The 33-year-old migrant worker from Fallbrook pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.

“It’s a minor miracle he hasn’t killed someone yet,” says Mary-Ellen Clark, the prosecutor in Vista who in her seven months of handling preliminary hearings says she has never encountered a case quite like Ortiz’s.

“I’ve never seen a case this bad,” she said. “Nothing scares him enough to get him to refrain from drinking even for a day. He goes right back out and does it again.”

CHP Officer Tim Santillan arrested Ortiz on Sept. 4, and again the next night, in Fallbrook.

“I’d never before arrested a driver for drunk driving on back-to-back nights,” he said. “It’s just fortunate he hasn’t hit anybody. It might be fortunate for him that he gets stopped so much.”

Neither the district attorney’s office nor the CHP paints a picture of Ortiz as some out-of-control drunk driver weaving across all the lanes of the highway, a disaster waiting to happen.

“To the untrained eye, you might not even think anything of his driving,” Clark said. “It’s not a case that he’s all over the road. It takes trained officers to spot him, and thank God they have.”

Ortiz had a blood alcohol level in his blood of 0.14% when he was arrested May 21 by the CHP in Fallbrook, officers say. A person can be convicted of driving under the influence if his blood alcohol level is 0.8%, and experts say 0.14% reflects about the equivalent of a six-pack of beer in the blood stream for a man about his size--170 pounds--at the time the test is taken.

His attorney, Dave Rawson of the public defender’s office in Vista, said those levels are low compared with other cases he’s seen.

“He recognizes he has an alcohol problem,” Rawson said of his client. “His BA (blood alcohol level) hasn’t been what I consider outrageous. Six or eight beers, maybe. But I’ve represented a lot of guys with DUIs (driving under the influence) that were .22 (percent), .23, .24, .25--guys who can’t even walk, let alone drive a car.”

Ortiz used various names “probably because he knew he had previous DUIs,” Rawson said.

Because he has used different names and driver’s licenses, when Ortiz was arrested in May, the arresting officer didn’t know that he had been arrested and convicted three times previously for drunk driving, thereby making his fourth arrest, by definition, a felony. So that night, he was put in the drunk tank at the county detention center in Vista, sobered up and released, as is procedure for typical first-time offenders. He promised to show up in court later.

On Sept. 4, he was arrested by Santillan after the officer spotted Ortiz being pursued by sheriff’s deputies in Fallbrook, allegedly speeding, and then running a stop sign. Santillan held back as the deputies pulled Ortiz over--but the deputies fetched Santillan, as is practice, when they thought they detected alcohol on Ortiz’s breath.

This time, according to court records, Ortiz had a blood alcohol level of 0.15%. Believing this was his second drunk-driving arrest, officers again took him to the jail in Vista, where he sobered up and was released.

Ortiz was on the road again the next night. Santillan, the CHP officer, said he saw Ortiz weaving and then stop in the middle of the road. Recognizing him as the same man he arrested the night before, Santillan pulled him over. This time, Ortiz’s blood alcohol level was 0.14%, records show. Same routine: jail, sober up, release. Even though it was his third arrest this year, Ortiz had not yet been in court on any of the charges so he couldn’t be considered a convicted three-time drunk driving repeater.

On Sept. 10, Oceanside police arrested him on Douglas Drive after noticing something squirrelly about his driving, and he was arrested for the fourth time this year for suspicion of drunk driving. His blood alcohol level this time was 0.12%, records show. Again Ortiz hadn’t struck anyone or caused injuries, so the arresting officers simply took him to the drunk tank so he could sober up and go back home.

On Sept. 21, he was pulled over again in Fallbrook for suspicion of drunk driving--this time by both sheriff’s deputies and the CHP. This time, he refused to take a blood-alcohol test--itself a violation of the law for which, he was told, he would be held accountable later. Drunk tank, sober up, release . . . and the paperwork began piling up at the district attorney’s office.

Ortiz finally was put behind bars Oct. 6 after allegedly trying to run a woman off the road in Fallbrook, and then being spotted later that night at a Fallbrook bar, where there was a report of an unruly patron. The arriving deputy recognized Ortiz as the suspect in the case earlier that day. As he placed Ortiz under arrest, records say, Ortiz became belligerent and kicked the arresting officer in the chest.

Facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon--his car--and battery on a peace officer, Ortiz this time was ordered held in jail on $5,000 bail--and he has remained in jail ever since.

It was after that most recent arrest that the district attorney’s office realized that Ortiz--using a variety of names--had been arrested five times this year for suspicion of drunk driving, as well as the assault and battery charges--and that he had been convicted of drunk driving three times previously.

“This is now an egregious case,” Clark said. “We’ve got to get him off the highway. His conduct has to stop. He needs to get the message that it’s not acceptable in this society to drive around like that.”

If he is bound over for trial in Superior Court and convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of eight years in state prison.

Over the years, authorities say, Ortiz has used a variety of names, adding to the confusion about his arrest record. He has gone by Vidal Ortiz, Jose Vidal Ortiz, Vidal Colin Ortiz, Jose Vidal Colin and Juan Lopez Gonzalez, records show.

Defense attorney Rawson said he has only met Ortiz once so far, before a court hearing last week when he hoped to discuss a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office.

“But the D.A. didn’t offer one,” Rawson said.