WARWICK — Robert A. Notarianni faced a 17th charge of driving on a suspended license Wednesday, but what really tripped him up was number 16.

Standing before Judge J. Terrence Houlihan Jr. in District Court, Warwick, on Wednesday morning, Notarianni protested that he had had his license reinstated and should be released on bail. “I’ve never missed a court date,” he told the judge. “I live on a farm. I have a 9-year-old son.”

But the license renewal didn’t matter, Houlihan said, because, on Jan. 21, Judge Frank J. Cenerini had given Notarianni a one-year suspended sentence with a year of probation for a suspended license offense — number 16. Notarianni’s arrest by Scituate police Oct. 16 triggered a process that demanded the defendant be held without bail pending a hearing on a probation violation, he said, after both the court probation officer and the police prosecutor urged the court to deny bail.

“I really need a lawyer here,” Notarianni said.

Earlier in the morning, the defendant got a brief postponement when he told Houlihan that his lawyer was tied up in an adjacent courtroom.

But Houlihan, in a bench conference, then learned from Renee Bevilacqua, lawyer-wife of the lawyer in question, that John Bevilacqua was not representing Notarianni.

“Mr. Bevilacqua is not coming in this morning,” Houlihan told Notarianni when the defendant was brought forward.

Houlihan said he would enter a not-guilty plea on the probation violation and referred Notarianni to the public defender’s office.

Sheriffs then handcuffed Notarianni, 44, of 47 Cucumber Hill Rd., Foster, and led him away. His next court appearance will be Nov. 5.

Notarianni’s arrest by Scituate police on Oct. 16 was one of two high-profile cases involving the same type of offense within days of each other.

In the other case, Paul Rocha, 47, of 348 Old Plainfield Pike, formerly of South Kingstown, was charged on Oct. 15 with driving with a suspended license — his 18th time, according to Deputy Police Chief Stephen B. Lang.

“It’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful,” Lang said. “The two of them should be riding a RIPTA bus together,” he said of Notarianni and Rocha.

Rocha also had been scheduled to appear before Houlihan Wednesday, but obtained a postponement until Nov. 18.

Lang said that Rhode Island law should be amended to follow the pattern in cases of domestic assault, in which a third offense automatically rises to the level of a felony, carrying a more serious penalty.

“When you look at the amount of bad accidents we have, or the [drunken-driving cases], most of the time, we discover that their licenses were suspended,” he said.

Beryl Kenyon, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, said earlier this month that under some circumstances a third offense of operating on a suspended license can already be considered a felony.

She said, for instance, that a driver can be charged with a felony for having a suspended license if the driver commits one or more of various other offenses at the same time. Among them are operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving to endanger with death resulting or committing three moving violations within a one-year period.

tmorgan@projo.com