City Atty. Denies He Drove While Drunk

Dana Point City Atty. Jerry Patterson, arrested on Dec. 15 in Newport Beach on suspicion of drunk driving, on Thursday denied he was driving while intoxicated.

He will be arraigned on Jan. 31 on two counts of driving under the influence, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lance Jensen.

Patterson, 59, a former congressman, was arrested in the pre-dawn hours as he was driving westbound on Coast Highway in Newport Beach. According to a report by arresting officer J. R. Rocker, Patterson was driving his 1991 Volkswagen van at about 85 miles per hour in a 50-mile speed zone and failed to stop at a red light.

Rocker said Patterson emerged from his vehicle after being stopped, at which time “I observed that (Patterson’s) balance was poor and he seemed unsteady on his feet.”

The officer’s report said he detected “a moderate odor of an alcoholic beverage” on Patterson, who also “displayed symptoms of intoxication.” The report said Patterson failed a field sobriety test.

Patterson told the officer, according to the report, that he had three glasses of wine and hadn’t eaten since 8 a.m. the day before.

Police say they administered a breath test at the police station that showed Patterson’s blood alcohol was 0.08, which is considered drunk under California law.

Patterson said Thursday a blood test given to him 50 minutes after the breath test determined his blood alcohol content to be 0.07, which is legally permissible for California motorists.

“I support sobriety laws and they should be enforced, but in my case, I wasn’t driving” drunk, Patterson said. He also said he did not go through a red light, but rather “I went through a changing light.”

He said police never performed a breath test on him and that the reason he appeared wobbly to Rocker is because he wears an artificial leg.

“The only objective report was the blood test. That’s the end of it,” he said.

Patterson has been a controversial figure in county politics. A Democrat, Patterson represented much of the district in the U.S. Congress before being defeated in 1984 by Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

In 1990, he and former State Democratic Party Chairman Richard O’Neill paid $10,000 each to settle civil charges of having failed to disclose the source of nearly $90,000 in campaign contributions in 1986.

And in November, 1992, Patterson, who works for the law firm of Burke, Williams and Sorensen, was fired as city manager in Cypress because of perceived bad legal advice he gave to council members and other problems of a political nature. That same year, at his request, he was replaced as city manager of Lake Forest.