Duped by a Blonde Too Good to Be True, 'Dirty DUI' Victim Seeks Redemption (Divorce Tactic?)

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 07/31/2011 | Malaika Fraley

[nickcarraway]

She was a striking blonde who spent a lot of time in Hawaii, just like he did. She was an avid Sharks fan, just like him. She said all the right things and made it clear that she wanted him.

"I haven't had sex in so long," she cooed on their first date.

Deep down, Dave Dutcher -- unassuming aeronautics engineer, father of three, recently split from his wife -- suspected that his Match.com sweetheart was too good to be true. And when a wildly flirtatious second date ended in a DUI, Dutcher wondered whether his ex-wife was somehow connected to the woman who had fed him shots and invited him hot-tubbing with an equally coquettish friend.

Then, two years later, a major police corruption scandal centered on a Concord private investigator exploded, and a prosecutor confirmed Dutcher's suspicions: He had been set up.

Now, on Monday, in a Contra Costa County courtroom, Dutcher will get his first chance at redemption: A judge will consider whether the stain from that night -- one of the five cases known as Contra Costa County's "dirty DUIs" -- unfairly tinged his divorce settlement. And prosecutors have also taken the extraordinary position that they will not stand in the way if Dutcher wants to withdraw his no contest plea -- two years later -- and ask a judge to wipe the crime from his record.

It's a stunning reversal of fortune for a 49-year-old man who, by his own admission, made a terrible decision to get behind the wheel that night in late 2008 after leaving the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Concord.

"I'm ashamed that I let my guard down," the Concord father said.

A kind of celebrity?

On that night, when his date and her friend flashed their breasts at Dutcher, he

[Tzimisce]

He was arrested by the PI's accomplices on the police force as part of an entrapment scheme. The PI was being paid $thousands to get the guy set up on a charge of drunken driving. How do we know for sure whether the charged blood alcohol level was real or fabricated?

From the article:

It's a stunning reversal of fortune for a 49-year-old man who, by his own admission, made a terrible decision to get behind the wheel that night in late 2008 after leaving the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Concord.

[Tzimisce]

The PI and his cop friends are dirty. That taints any evidence they may have presented.

The guy was driving drunk. He admitted to driving drunk (plead no contest.)

If the cops are dirty, that's a crime too and they deserve to be punished.

But that doesn't make the charge of drunk driving any less of a crime.

I don't understand why you're defending this guy. He could have run over a little kid.

It's called "taking responsibility for one's actions".

[PapaBear3625]

The guy was driving drunk. He admitted to driving drunk (plead no contest.)

He admitted to having drank alcohol, and to driving. He had no reason to think that the specific blood alcohol level he was accused of having, may have been falsified in order to make the case that the dirty cops were being paid $thousands to make.