Former Miss USA Rima Fakih appeared in a suburban Detroit courtroom this week in her drunken driving case. Her attorneys hope the case could be resolved soon with a plea deal.
“I apologize. My lawyer doesn’t want me to talk,” said Fakih.
Her attorney, W. Otis Culpepper, will prepare for a trial, but understands that a plea deal is a possibility.
“Of course she’s remorseful. She’s a model for young women…She’s a woman of substantial character,” said Culpepper.
At the time of her arrest, police found a bottle of champagne inside her Jaguar. Her blood alcohol level was measured at 0.20 %, much higher than Michigan’s limit of 0.08%.
Fakih won the Miss USA title in May of 2010. She was the first Arab-American to be crowned Miss USA, and the first Miss Michigan to win since 1993. Fakih was born in Lebanon, but moved to the United States at a young age.
Posts Tagged ‘Alcohol Treatment’
Former Miss USA Appears In Court In DUI Case
Saturday, January 21st, 2012Eastern North Carolina Struggling With Prescription Drug Abuse
Monday, January 16th, 2012Eastern North Carolina is experiencing dire consequences from prescription drug abuse.
“With the exception of traffic fatalities, prescription drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among young people in Eastern North Carolina,” said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.
According to the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, the death rate for unintentional overdoses was 11 per 100,000 people, but was higher in the counties of Eastern North Carolina. Eastern North Carolina has seen a 400 percent increase in prescription drug abuse over the past five years. According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, methadone, oxycodone, hydrocodone and other pain pills were the most common drugs to blame for overdose deaths in Eastern North Carolina.
Emergency Rooms Prepare For New Year’s Eve
Saturday, December 31st, 2011New Year’s Eve is a busy night for emergency room physicians across the country. In San Francisco last year, emergency rooms experienced approximately a 50 percent increase in patients on New Year’s Eve.
“We’re already preparing to see more patients,” said Dr. Malini Singh, interim medical director for San Francisco General Hospital’s emergency department. “It’s just a reality of New Year’s Eve.”
Alcohol plays a significant role in the traffic in emergency rooms on New Year’s Eve. Broken bones, head wounds and the injuries resulting from drunken driving are the most common problems seen in emergency rooms. Physicians are cautioning people to be responsible with alcohol, while not encouraging people to overindulge in alcohol.
“I don’t want people to think I’m encouraging drinking, but if you do, you have to drink responsibly,” said Dr. Steven Polevoi, the medical director for the University of California at San Francisco emergency department.
South Florida A Hub For Venezuelan Drug Money
Thursday, December 29th, 2011Although relations between the United States and Venezuela continue to deteriorate, suitcases of laundered drug money continues to arrive in south Florida. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, south Florida has become a hub of drug-money laundering.
A task force in Broward and Miami-Dade counties has traced millions of dollars to international heroin and cocaine traffickers. More than 15 people in south Florida – mostly Venezuelans – were arrested last year on federal money laundering charges. They are accused of laundering more than $7 million dollars in profits from heroin and cocaine.
“It’s very blatant,” said Carmen Pino, assistant deputy in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami. “South Florida is a real hot spot for this because of all the international trade.”
Delray Beach Residents Upset About Planned Sober House
Thursday, December 29th, 2011Residents in Delray Beach are opposing a sober living facility that will soon open in their North Ocean Boulevard neighborhood. The supervised program will be run by the Caron Foundation.
“We certainly have plans to open an additional facility,” said Drew Rothermel, president of Caron Florida operations.
Despite the fact that federal law protects people who are in active recovery, residents still say they do not want the house in their backyard.
“We have been caught off guard and many people are angry for that,” said Cary Glickstein, an area resident and the chairman of Delray Beach’s Planning and Zoning Board. “Transient housing denigrates a neighborhood for a myriad of reasons and in my opinion belongs in the city only where transient lodging is currently allowed – hotel zoning property – and not in single-family neighborhoods.”
Rothermel and advocates for the facility say that this uproar only adds to the discrimination that recovering addicts face every day.
Pill Mill Kingpin’s Sentencing Delayed Six Months
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Pill mill kingpin Jeff George will not be sentenced for at least another six months on second degree murder charges in the 2009 death of a clinic patient.
George, several of his relatives and others connected to the East Coast Pain Clinic are facing federal charges from “Operation Oxy Alley,” an investigation that involved local and federal drug agents. Florida state prosecutors also charged George and two other people with murder in the death of Joey Bartolucci. The 24-year-old was found dead with half-filled prescriptions for Xanax and Dilaudid prescribed by one of East Coast Pain Clinic’s physicians.
George pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in exchange for a plea agreement that made his potential prison sentence at a maximum of twenty years. Now George will not be sentenced until June of 2012.
Former Addict Graduates With Master’s Degree
Saturday, December 17th, 2011Aaron Alvin Sr. has overcome many obstacles in life and has now graduated from Florida International University in Miami with a master’s degree in social work.
“I wanted to make sure I was in a position to help people, and so I went ahead and got my master’s. I just continued to pursue something that was bigger and better, and ended up here,” Alvin said.
Alvin was arrested for drugs, domestic violence and grand theft auto. He was homeless for a period of time. He is thankful that a judge helped him turn his life around by placing him into a drug treatment program.
“I know that today, without drugs and alcohol, I can have fun, I can laugh, I can play, and I can succeed.”
Alvin does not take his recovery for granted and hopes to one day have his own clinic helping other drug addicts find hope.
First National Prescription Drug Abuse Summit To Be Held In Florida
Friday, December 16th, 2011The first National Prescription Drug Abuse Summit will be held in Florida in April of 2012.
Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, will be the Summit’s keynote speaker.
“We are excited that Dr. Volkow will share her expertise during the Summit,” said Karen Kelly, the president and CEO of Operation UNITE, a Kentucky-based organization that is coordinating the Summit. “She is a highly regarded professional whose work has engaged the entire health care system to seek appropriate responses and effective treatments for addiction.”
Florida has made great strides in the fight against prescription drug abuse in 2011, and it is hoped that the progress will continue into the new year.
Survey Reveals Marijuana Use Increased Among Teens
Thursday, December 15th, 2011A new survey finds that while cigarette and alcohol use among teenagers is the lowest in decades, marijuana use is increasing among teenagers.
Teenage marijuana use increased in 2011 for the fourth straight year – a sharp contrast to a dramatic drop that happened in the previous decade. Daily marijuana use is at a 30-year peak level among high school seniors.
The Monitoring the Future survey is completed annually and asks eighth, 10th and 12th graders questions about their alcohol, drug and smoking habits. The survey is done by the University of Michigan with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Almost 47,000 students from 400 public and private schools were polled in their classrooms earlier this year.
College Binge Drinking Linked To Sexual Assault
Thursday, December 8th, 2011The adjustment to college is difficult for many, but young women who avoided alcohol in high school often drink once they are in college. According to a new study from the University of Buffalo finds that those who binge drink in their freshman year may be at a relatively high risk of sexual assault.
The study followed 437 young women from their high school graduation through their freshman year. The researchers learned that of those women who had never drank heavily, or at all, in high school, nearly half admitted to binge drinking at least once by the end of their first semester in college. The binge drinking was linked to the risk of sexual victimization. Of all the women who binge drank, 25 percent admitted to being sexually victimized during the fall semester. That included anything from unwanted sexual contact to rape. The more alcohol the binges involved was directly connected to the likelihood of sexual assault.
“This suggests that drinking prevention efforts should begin before college,” said lead researcher Maria Testa, a senior scientist at University of Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions.