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Ex-judge charged with drunken driving
By CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times, MADEIRA BEACH -- A recently retired judge who was released last week from psychiatric ward care for a drinking problem was arrested Saturday afternoon on a drunken driving charge. David F. Patterson, a longtime judge who retired last month, was arrested after a test showed his blood-alcohol content was 0.241 percent, three times the level at which a driver is presumed to be impaired in Florida. A followup test registered a similar result: 0.234 percent. Pinellas sheriff's deputies discontinued field sobriety tests because they feared Patterson was going to fall down, officials said. Patterson was charged with misdemeanor drunken driving. The arrest came after a motorist flagged down a deputy Saturday afternoon on Gulf Boulevard at 150th Avenue in Madeira Beach, complaining that a black Porsche was driving erratically. Two other motorists also stopped to tell the deputy they saw the black Porsche driving south in the northbound lanes of Gulf Boulevard, sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said. The deputy saw the Porsche pull into a parking lot at Gulf Boulevard and 150th Avenue. The deputy walked up to the car, noted the driver's breath smelled of alcohol and saw his eyes were bloodshot and watery, an arrest report said. The driver identified himself as Patterson but had trouble finding his driver's license in his wallet, Pasha said. Patterson, 62, of 10015 Yacht Club Drive in Treasure Island, also was unsteady on his feet and needed assistance keeping his balance, the report said. He failed some roadside field sobriety tests, an arrest report said, but was not allowed to finish because of his unsteadiness. Patterson spent the night at the Pinellas County Jail before posting $150 bail Sunday morning. He could not be reached Sunday. A message left at his home was not returned. Larry Goldstein, Patterson's attorney, also could not be reached. Patterson had been released Wednesday from the psychiatric ward of St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, even though doctors had fought to keep him there for a drinking problem. He had been at the hospital for 10 days. A separate court order still bars Patterson, 62, from contact with his wife, Johnna, who accuses him of becoming violent and suicidal while drinking heavily during the past couple of years. Some of the allegations made by Patterson's wife cover the time he was on the bench as chief of the 14-judge 2nd District Court of Appeal, which hears appeals from 14 counties, including Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough. Mrs. Patterson said in her petition to the court that her husband intended to file for divorce. That day he allegedly pulled her hair while struggling over a hidden bottle of rum she had discovered, according to the document. The next day, he called her and threatened to "do something exceptionally violent," the petition states. Court documents show Mrs. Patterson accuses her husband of threatening to have a limousine driver kill her and to destroy her if she filed for divorce. She also said he threatened to kill himself with a gun in July 1999. Treasure Island police responded to the home this month after Mrs. Patterson and a family friend said Patterson was "intoxicated and unable to take care of himself," according to a police report. Police took Patterson to the hospital under the Baker Act, which lets people be committed up to 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation. A person being held can be released unless doctors ask a judge for permission to hold the person longer. Eighteen months ago, Patterson acknowledged to colleagues on the 2nd District Court of Appeal that he had a drinking problem. He took two months off at that time and entered an in-patient drug rehabilitation program.
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