Al Gore's son charged with pot possession
Sunday, December 21, 2003 Posted: 0328 GMT (11:28 AM HKT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested Friday night on a marijuana possession charge after police stopped the car he was driving for not having its headlights on, according to a news release from the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Police Services.
Albert Gore III, 21, was behind the wheel of a Cadillac driving in downtown Bethesda at 11:30 p.m. EST Friday when it was spotted by a unit with the Montgomery County Police Holiday Task Force, the statement said.
After he pulled the car over, Officer Robert Cassels noticed all of its windows and the sunroof were opened despite the freezing temperature, and he "smelled the odor of marijuana coming from inside the car," the statement said.
A search of the car found "a partial marijuana cigarette" and "a cardboard cigarette box with a baggie containing suspected marijuana," the police statement said.
In addition to Gore, police charged two male passengers in the car with a misdemeanor count of possession of marijuana. The three were released from jail, pending trial.
Gore, a Harvard University student, has had previous brushes with the law. He was ticketed for reckless driving by North Carolina police in August 2000 when he was clocked going 94 mph. Military police arrested him for drunk driving near a military base in Virginia in September 2002.
My Comment: It's interesting to note in this CNN story, they say that the three were released from jail... in MoCo they usually just write a citation on the spot for simple possession. So maybe they were brought into the station because AlGore III was driving at the time of the judgement error. Or it could just be sloppy rewriting of the press release.