A Carson City man, jailed in April for a 14th drunken driving arrest, pleaded guilty to felony DUI in District Court on Monday.
Glen A. Richmond, 57, faces six to 15 years in prison when sentenced Aug. 25.
"We will ask for the maximum sentence," said Assistant District Attorney Gerald Gardner. "It's hard to imagine not asking for a sentence in the upper range."
Court records indicate that, between 1969 and 2002, Richmond was picked up on suspicion of drunken driving six times in Carson City, four times in Lyon County, three times in California, (including one charge in 1970 of driving under the influence of drugs), and once in Washoe County. The dispositions of all of the cases were not immediately available.
Nevada Department of Corrections' online records indicate he served at least two stints in prison, one of them being a sentence of six years for a 1994 Lyon County drunken driving conviction.
It was unclear how much time Richmond served on the DUI charge because those records were not readily available Monday, said Rex Reed with the Nevada Department of Corrections.
On April 5, a woman called police after seeing a man asleep in a car at about 2 p.m. in the 1900 block of North Division Street.
When officers arrived, Richmond was sleeping behind the wheel, a can of Budweiser between his legs and the keys in the ignition, according to the arrest report.
After being awakened by a deputy, Richmond allegedly stated he'd drunk three or four beers. The report states he was unable to complete the field sobriety tests, and a preliminary breath test registered his blood alcohol content as .150 " nearly twice the legal limit of .08.
Because Richmond had a prior felony DUI conviction, any subsequent DUI arrests and convictions are treated as a felony, according to a 2005 revision to the Nevada DUI law.
A person has to have two prior DUI convictions within a seven-year period before the third can be considered a felony.
"The current estimate is that 30 percent of DUI arrests are repeat offenders," said Laurel Stadler, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Lyon County chapter president.
"That's exactly the reason for our 'Once a felon, always a felon' law. These are the people that we need to have off the streets," Stadler said.
- Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.