From Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – Before sentencing a 13-time DUI offender to six years in state prison Friday for violating probation, Judge Thomas H. Goethels gave the defendant a stern lecture.
“I hope that at some point, the reality of your life slaps you in the face,” Goethals told Dennis Patrick Malavasi, 55, of Huntington Beach. “You have been immersed in denial – mired in denial – for almost all of your adult life.”
Goethals said it’s “incredibly fortunate” that Malavasi hasn’t killed or injured anyone during a stretch of DUI convictions since the 1970s that veteran prosecutors say is the worst they can remember.
At Friday’s hearing in Santa Ana, a shackled Malavasi admitted for the first time in court that he had a drinking problem.
“Mr. Malavasi,” Goethels asked him when the defendant took the witness stand. “Are you an alcoholic?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No doubt in your mind?”
“No doubt in my mind.”
But there would be no more second chances for Malavasi…..MORE