"While Retrieving Drunken Client, Lawyer Is Busted for Drunken Driving
The Associated Press
January 30, 2007
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Police arrested a Madison, Wisc., lawyer for drunken driving after he went to the station to pick up a client who had been arrested for the same offense.
"I can’t tell you how humbled I am, how embarrassed I am," said Madison lawyer Rick Petri, who once prosecuted drunken drivers for the Madison city attorney’s office.
Petri’s client, former Dane County Board member Patrick DePula, 34, was arrested early Thursday for drunken driving, Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson said. His blood alcohol concentration was 0.08 percent.
Petri, 64, said he had been out the same evening, had a couple of drinks and went home about 8 p.m. to watch the Badgers basketball game. He said he had a couple more drinks, then went to bed.
He said Madison police called around about 2 a.m. Thursday asking him to pick up DePula.
Petri said the officer asked if he had been drinking, and said he could only come if he had no alcohol in his system.
He said he was certain his blood-alcohol concentration was under 0.08 percent, the legal limit for drunken driving in Wisconsin.
"I did not think I was intoxicated, and I was wrong," Petri said."