http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071016_1_A12_spanc18843

Lawmaker's DUI charge upgraded
By RHETT MORGAN World Staff Writer
10/16/2007

HUGO -- A state legislator's blood-alcohol level after an August traffic accident in Choctaw County was 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle.

Prosecutors filed an amended charge Monday of aggravated driving under the influence against state Sen. Jeff Rabon, D-Hugo, said Laura Ross Wallis, the district attorney for Choctaw, McCurtain and Pushmataha counties.

A misdemeanor charge of aggravated driving under the influence can be filed when the blood-alcohol content is 0.15 or higher. The legal threshold for DUI is 0.08.

Wallis amended the count after reviewing the results of Rabon's post-crash blood test.

A senator since 1996, Rabon, 45, failed a field sobriety test after the three-vehicle crash Aug. 27 that sent a woman to a hospital with minor injuries, authorities said. Rabon did not submit to a breath-analysis test, but blood was drawn from him at a hospital.

If convicted of the DUI count, Rabon faces as much as a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Vaughn Patterson of Hugo said he was driving a 1999 Ford pickup on U.S. 70 in Hugo when a red vehicle, described in reports as a 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe, struck his truck and then a third vehicle.

Patterson said he approached the driver, who identified himself as Rabon and who "smelled like a brewery."

Rabon has previous alcohol-related convictions, but a statute of limitations in state drunken-driving laws precluded him from being charged with a felony in connection with his most recent arrest.

A felony DUI charge can be filed for a second offense, but only if the conviction for the first offense occurred within 10 previous years, by law.

Tulsa County District Court records show that Rabon was convicted in 1990 in two alcohol-related cases, one for driving under the influence of an intoxicating liquor and another for actual physical control of a motor vehicle while intoxicated.