King Ordered Into Alcohol Treatment Program : Rehab: Misdemeanor charges are also filed after his weekend arrest on charges of drunk driving. Officials, saying his use of liquor is a parole violation, send him to recovery facility.

Rodney G. King was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor drunk driving and was ordered to spend 60 days in a live-in alcoholism recovery program after his weekend arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, officials said.

The misdemeanor drunk driving charge and the order to undergo rehabilitation came as two separate blows for King, whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police generated a national furor.

King has been arrested four times since his March, 1991, beating by police, but this is the first time criminal charges have been filed against him during that period.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn filed the misdemeanor charges against King, who was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of drunk driving after he crashed a car into a block wall west of Downtown Los Angeles.

King failed a field sobriety test and was taken to Parker Center, where he submitted to a breath test that registered a 0.19% blood-alcohol reading, police said. California’s legal limit is 0.08%.

The use of alcohol violated the terms of King’s parole from a December, 1990, robbery conviction. As a result, Jerome Di Maggio, regional parole administrator of the state Department of Corrections, ordered King to spend 60 days in a live-in alcoholism treatment program and admonished him that he faced a return to prison if he again violated the terms of his parole.

“He must do a minimum of 60 days in a treatment program and maybe more depending on his progress,” Di Maggio said. “If he leaves the program for any reason, he is going to jail.”

Di Maggio said King had completed paperwork for the live-in treatment program but did not know if he had entered the facility--whose location he declined to disclose--on Tuesday.

Hahn said King’s case was treated like any other drunk driving misdemeanor.

“This is a standard case, our bread-and-butter type of case,” he said. “We file more cases of driving under the influence than anything else we do.”

The accident occurred about 1:30 a.m. Saturday as King was backing out of the parking lot of a nightclub at 4th and Boylston streets, where he had been denied entry, police said.

Central Traffic Division officers found King sitting behind the wheel of a blue, 1986 Chevrolet Blazer, near where the vehicle had crashed into a seven-foot wall, sustaining moderate damage and a flat tire. No one was injured.

King initially told officers that one of his two cousins was behind the wheel, but later he admitted that he was the driver, police said.

An arresting officer stated in his report that King had poor balance, slurred speech, watery eyes, was slow to respond to requests and was unable to complete field sobriety tests. He was taken to Parker Center without incident, where he was booked for drunk driving and released on his own recognizance. King was ordered to appear in traffic court Sept. 15.

King is charged with one count each of driving under the influence and driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08%, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

King allegedly was in a similar state of intoxication when he was beaten with police batons and kicked by officers after the 1991 high-speed chase through the San Fernando Valley.

Di Maggio said King will be confined in a treatment facility 24 hours a day. He will be allowed no visitors for the first month except for his attorney. “His parole agent will see him a couple of days a week,” Di Maggio said.

Di Maggio added that King has violated parole on two other occasions, both of which involved drunk driving. The department will decide how to discipline him for those cases after the completion of treatment.

“He has always been very cooperative with his parole agent, but he doesn’t have a lot of insight as to why he does what he does,” Di Maggio said. “He’s an impulsive guy.”