Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil closes out final DUI sentencing requirements

By Dave Toplikar

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 | 9:39 a.m.

Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil got to close out his DUI case from last June today in Las Vegas Justice Court — despite not staying out of trouble after serving 10 days of a 15-day jail sentence.

Neil didn't appear in court today, but was represented by his attorney, David Schonfeld, in a hearing to check the status of whether he had fulfilled the requirements of his DUI sentence.

Schonfeld told Justice of the Peace Eric Goodman that Neil had completed all of the requirements of his sentence. The sentence ordered him to serve 15 days of jail time, 15 days of house arrest, pay a $585 fine, attend DUI school and attend a victim-impact panel online.

The prosecutor asked whether Neil had also stayed out of trouble.

That question appeared to be in reference to the recent charges Neil faces as a result of an March 24 confrontation he had involving his former girlfriend, Alicia Jacobs.

Neil has been charged with battery domestic violence and disorderly conduct stemming from that incident at the Las Vegas Hilton.

"There was no stay out of trouble order, your honor," Schonfeld told the judge. Schonfeld said the transcripts from the sentencing hearing show staying out of trouble for a probationary period of time wasn't part of the sentence package.

That sentence was the result of a plea agreement that had been reached between Neil's attorneys and District Attorney David Roger earlier this year.

Goodman, who appeared surprised, asked Schonfeld whether he had a copy of the transcript. Schonfeld brought a copy to the bench and directed him to the fourth page of the transcript.

"Mr. Schonfeld, you are correct. There is no stay out of trouble order. That closes it out today," Goodman said.

Schonfeld said there was also a requirement that Neil donate $500 to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Goodman told him he could pay that today through the court.

Asked outside the courtroom whether it was unusual for the "stay out of trouble" requirement not to be part of a DUI sentence, Schonfeld had no comment.

However, some light on the issue was provided by Bruce Nelson, chief deputy district attorney on the vehicular crimes unit, who is one of the five prosecutors who handles DUI cases in Clark County.

Nelson said a "stay out of trouble" order for a probationary period of time is optional in DUI cases.

"It's usually up to the individual judge," Nelson said. However, "Judge Goodman does it in virtually every case."

Although Goodman's department handled Neil's case, a different judge handled Neil's actual sentencing on Jan. 26.

Neil came to court early that day and at the request of his attorneys, his case was moved up and was heard early by Justice of the Peace Pro Tem Gerry Zobrist.

Neil was required to serve only 10 days of his 15-day sentence in Clark County Detention Center.

Neil, who lives in Las Vegas, was pulled over by a Metro Police officer about 11 p.m. June 27, 2010, for speeding and weaving between lanes on Desert Inn Road west of Paradise Road, near the Las Vegas Strip.

Neil told the officer that he had three glasses of champagne, but he didn’t know when his last drink was, police said.

The officer said Neil failed three standard drunken driving physical tests, which measure horizontal eye movement, the ability to walk and turn heel to toe, and the ability to stand on one leg for 30 seconds.

He also was given a breath test. Neil’s readings from the test were 0.215 and 0.216, compared to the legal limit of 0.08, police said. Neil was booked into jail and was released the next day on $2,000 bail.

It wasn't Neil's first time for a DUI-related charge.

In 1984, Neil crashed a sports car head-on into another car in Redondo Beach, Calif., killing his passenger, Nicholas Dingley, a 24-year-old drummer with the group Hanoi Rocks.

Neil, then 25, wasn’t injured. As part of a plea deal, he agreed to pay two victims in the other car $2.5 million in restitution. He was also sentenced to 30 days in jail, five years of probation and 200 hours of community service in that case.

Meanwhile, Neil is due back in court on May 2 for the March 24 Las Vegas Hilton incident.

He was charged with with battery constituting domestic violence for allegedly striking his ex-girlfriend, Alicia Jacobs, 44, in the chest with his finger, according to a criminal complaint.

Neil was also charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly harassing Jacobs' friends, Patricia McCrone, 40, and John Katsilometes, 45, who is a Sun columnist and editor. Katsilometes wrote about the incident.

David Chesnoff, one of Neil's attorneys, has said Neil would plead not guilty to those charges.