Vito Fossella, the former GOP congressman from Staten Island, NY, pleaded guilty to a drunk driving charge in a Virginia court Monday, in a change of heart which his lawyer said was prompted in part by the drunk driving death of a Major League Baseball player last week.
Fossella was pulled over after running a red light on May 1, 2008, and subsequently charged with driving while drunk. The arrest led to revelations that the married father-of-three had had a fourth child with a longterm girlfriend in suburban Virginia.
Although he had been convicted in October, Fossella, 43, had been appealing that decision on the basis that he said police had used a faulty breath-test machine.
But his attorney Barry Pollack told the Associated Press that attempts to obtain information about the breath-test machine were unsuccessful. And then Fossella had a change of heart, he said, after the death last Thursday of Nick Adenhart, a 22-year old pitcher with the Los Angeles Angels, whose car was hit by a suspected drunk driver.
“With that in the news, Mr. Fossella thought it particularly appropriate for him to acknowledge his own wrongdoing and not to fight over the issue of the accuracy of the reading in this particular case,” Pollack said. “The fact of the matter is, he had something to drink.”
Fossella entered a guilty plea today in Alexandria District Court. He has four days remaining on the five-day sentence issued in December and will serve them beginning this Friday over two weekends in Alexandria. He was given credit for the day he served when he was arrested.
Fossella was the only Republican member of the New York City congressional delegation before he stepped down at the end of his term, on Jan. 3, 2009. Democrat Michael McMahon won the seat last November against another Republican.
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