Oxnard Drunk Driver Sentenced to Prison

An Oxnard man who has been convicted nine times of driving under the influence of alcohol was sentenced Monday to two years and eight months in state prison for his latest offense of striking a pregnant woman and her husband while backing out of a driveway.

It was John Willard Sullivan’s second DUI case in which someone was hurt, court records show. Neither incident resulted in serious injuries.

Kevin J. McGee, assistant chief deputy district attorney, conceded that nine DUI convictions is an unusually high number. But, he added: “we’ve seen cases in the teens” in Ventura County, although the defendants involved had some out-of-state convictions.

Sullivan’s offenses occurred in California, including six in Ventura County. He received jail terms in most of the cases but has never been sent to state prison, according to an investigator’s pre-sentencing report.

Driving under the influence and causing injuries is punishable by up to three years in prison. Attorneys on both sides speculated that Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren imposed the two-year term--plus eight months for a probation violation--because Sullivan pleaded guilty.

“When a suspect pleads guilty, it’s unusual for the court to give the aggravated term,” McGee said. “If he had gone to trial, I think you’d have seen a substantially different sentence.”

Sullivan’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson, said the defendant told her that he is a manic-depressive who sometimes “self-medicates with whatever is around, including alcohol, and that leads to problems.”

In a statement to a probation investigator, Sullivan said: “When I drink, I drink. If I buy a six-pack, I drink a six-pack. If I buy a case, I drink a case.”

No information was available on one of the DUI cases, but records indicate that Sullivan, a 39-year-old welder, was first convicted of drunk driving in August, 1971, at age 20. He received three years’ probation, according to a pre-sentencing report.

Although he had several encounters with the law in the ensuing years-- including convictions for burglary, battery, disorderly conduct and assault with a deadly weapon--it was four years before Sullivan was again convicted of driving under the influence, according to court records.

In that case, which occurred in Sacramento County, the pre-sentencing report said Sullivan ran over two stop signs, left his vehicle, and was drinking a beer at a nearby store when police caught up with him. His blood-alcohol content was 0.27%, nearly three times the legal limit at the time, the report said.

He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years’ probation.

Subsequent DUI convictions occurred in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981, according to court records. In the 1979 case, Sullivan led California Highway Patrol officers on a 120-m.p.h. chase before he was finally stopped, the report says.

He was sent to an alcohol rehabilitation program in the 1978 case and was sentenced to a year in jail for each of the subsequent convictions.

Sullivan’s next DUI arrest occurred on Christmas Eve, 1986, when he rear-ended a car, causing minor injuries to the driver, and then crashed into a garage. His blood-alcohol content was 0.29%, court records show. Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath sentenced him to a year in jail and five years’ probation.

The latest incident occurred Oct. 10 after Sullivan argued with his girlfriend, picked up a case of beer and drove to his mother’s house on Elm Street in Oxnard, the pre-sentencing report said. He was backing out of his mother’s driveway when he ran into Rosa and Augustine Rosas, who were walking down the sidewalk. Neither was seriously hurt, although Rosa Rosas was pregnant and one of her bruises became infected, records show.

Although conceding that her client was “a long shot for probation,” Olson told Judge Perren that Sullivan caused no problems when he was closely supervised. The pre-sentencing report notes that during his most recent probation, Sullivan completed welding school and stayed out of trouble for almost four years.

But even the probation officer who supervised him during that period recommended that Sullivan serve prison time for the latest offense, according to the report.

Until 1989, driving under the influence was not a felony and those convicted of it could not be sent to prison, McGee said, although a conviction for DUI in which injuries were caused could be prosecuted as a felony.

Under a two-year-old law, a person who is convicted three times of DUI can be charged with felony DUI for a fourth offense if all four occur within a seven-year period.

McGee said the new law may result in longer prison terms for drunk drivers.

“In the past four or five months, we’ve started to see some defendants who have been sent to prison as felons for DUI,” McGee said.

When such cases come up for sentencing, he said, the judge has the option of tacking on an additional year to the sentence because prior prison time is considered an aggravating factor.