Roger Clinton Charged With DUI and Trying to Pick Fight

Roger Clinton, half-brother of former President Bill Clinton, was formally charged Wednesday with drunken driving over the weekend and trying to pick a fight in front of a Hermosa Beach bar, police said.

The 44-year-old Clinton, a singer and B-movie actor living in Torrance, was arrested Saturday morning by a Hermosa Beach police officer who noticed him driving a Ford Expedition erratically on the South Bay city’s streets, said Officer Paul Wolcott.

A breath test found Clinton’s blood alcohol level to exceed the legal limit of 0.08%.

The 2:26 a.m. arrest was not the first encounter that morning with Clinton’s younger half-sibling, whose presidential pardon last month for a 1985 drug conviction is one of many being investigated by Congress.

Two officers had ordered him away from the city’s Lighthouse nightclub on the Pier Plaza shortly before 2 a.m., Wolcott said. The club’s doorman had flagged down the officers, alleging that Clinton had become belligerent and tried to push his way past him, then verbally berated him, Wolcott said. The bar was closing at the time. Clinton then allegedly challenged the doorman to a fight. He faces a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace.

The doorman didn’t recognize Clinton, but police officers did, Wolcott said. He added that Clinton “is being treated like any other citizen.” Roger Clinton could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.