Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Erin Brockovich-Ellis says sorry after boating arrest at Lake Mead

Erin Brockovich

Chris Pizzello / AP

Erin Brockovich meets the photographers at the premiere of the film “Erin Brockovich” Tuesday, March 14, 2000, in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. The film dramatizes Brockovich’s rags-to-riches tale as a single mother and file clerk who discovered an environmental disaster in a seemingly ordinary real-estate deal, and won the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in the U.S.

Click to enlarge photo

A booking photo of Erin Brockovich-Ellis after her arrest Friday, June 7, 2013, at Lake Mead on a count of operating a boat while intoxicated.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich-Ellis, the subject of the eponymous movie, has apologized after she was arrested Friday at Lake Mead on a count of operating a boat while intoxicated.

In a statement, Brockovich-Ellis said she was not operating the boat in open waters and didn’t pose a public safety risk but considered her actions to be a mistake.

“I know better and I am very sorry,” she said. “After a day in the sun and with nothing to eat it appears that a couple of drinks had a greater impact than I realized.”

Brockovich-Ellis, 52, was arrested by a Nevada Department of Wildlife game warden who observed her struggling to dock her boat at the Las Vegas Boat Harbor on Lake Mead, department spokesman Edwin Lyngar said.

The warden conducted a field sobriety test and found Brockovich-Ellis to be over the legal limit for alcohol to operate a boat and arrested her, Lyngar said.

She was booked at the Clark County Detention Center and was released after posting a $1,000 bail.

Brockovich-Ellis came to fame in the 1990s when she helped lead a class action lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric for leaking toxic chemicals into a small California town. A movie based on her life was released in 2000 and netted actress Julia Roberts an Academy Award for best actress.

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