Kobierowski

PROVIDENCE — Stanley Kobierowski, whose drunken-driving case made international news and made him the butt of jokes on TV, yesterday pleaded no contest to driving with a potentially lethal amount of alcohol in his bloodstream.

In a plea bargain, Kobierowski, 34, of North Providence, admitted in District Court that he was driving drunk late on the night of July 21, when he crashed his pickup truck into a portable electronic message board on Route 95 near Providence Place mall.

The state police gave him two chemical breath tests, and the readings — .489 and .491 — were six times the legal limit of .08. The police and the attorney general’s office said that, as far as they know, the readings were the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island on a machine of that kind.

Alcohol intoxication experts say there is a very severe risk of death for the average person with a reading that approaches .3 or .4, but that certain people are innately more resistant to the effects of alcohol or can build up a tolerance.

Judge Christine S. Jabour sentenced Kobierowski to the terms his lawyer, Richard H. James, negotiated with Special Assistant Attorney General Jason Knight: one year probation, one-year suspension of his driver’s license, a $500 fine, 40 hours community service, attendance at a school about the dangers of drunken driving, successful completion of an alcohol-treatment program, and court costs and assessments.

Under Rhode Island law, “no contest” is the equivalent of a guilty plea.

The law also distinguishes among levels of intoxication for the criminal offense of driving under the influence. He pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge of driving with a blood alcohol content of .15 or greater/first offense.

In return for that plea, the attorney general withdrew a second charge of resisting arrest.

Kobierowski already has completed a course of alcohol-addiction treatment at a residential facility in Florida, and according to Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, that satisfies the pertinent requirement in the sentence.

Outside court, James said that Kobierowski, formerly a chef at Downcity Diner, may be able to do his community service with his family’s church.

James credited the police and the attorney general’s office with having handled the case “in a very judicious manner” that balanced the severity of the crime and the public interest with the fact that it is Kobierowski’s first offense.

“They chose not to use this as a cause célèbre” despite the notoriety of the case, James said. “The punishment fit the crime.”

Said Healey: “He’s very lucky to be alive, and he’s very lucky that he didn’t kill somebody.”

The idea that someone could be so drunk yet be able to walk, talk and drive, albeit with very limited success, was astonishing to many and humorous to some. Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show, made light of the case on one of his nightly monologues.

CNN listed it as a national news item in its bottom-of-the-TV-screen news crawl, and CNN political commentator Glenn Beck joked about it on his show.

James said that he checked on the Internet and found that media organizations around the world had published news items about the case. He found more than 70 items, he said, but curtailed the search because the downloads were clogging his computer’s memory.

Dr. Robert Swift, director of research at the Providence VA Medical Center and a Brown University professor with degrees in physiology and psychiatry, said yesterday that with repeated long-term consumption, the brain develops a tolerance for alcohol and the consumer can remain alert and semi-functional even at a blood-alcohol level that would kill someone else. Some people, he added, are innately more resistant to the sedative and ultimately toxic effect of alcohol.

Swift said he once admitted to a detoxification unit in a Rhode Island hospital a woman with a blood-alcohol content of .537.

“She was walking and talking and joking,” albeit stumbling and with slurred speech, he said.

gsmith@projo.com