By Khalida Sarwari
Proving that some people need to make the same mistake twice–or three or four times–to learn a lesson, Robert Schiro, having just completed an 18-month prison sentence for driving drunk earlier this year, is back in hot water with the law again.
Schiro, 74, was released in January after serving only half of his three-year prison term for a 2009 hit-and-run near Highway 9 that left the victim permanently disabled. He was released early for good behavior, but as part of his sentence, Schiro was placed on probation and had his driver’s license revoked.
That allegedly didn’t stop him from climbing behind the wheel of his white Cadillac Escalade while intoxicated recently. The decision landed Schiro behind bars yet again. This time around, prosecutors are charging the Saratoga businessman with DUI, hit-and-run causing property damage, driving without a driver’s license and violating his probation.
The charges stem from Schiro’s arrest on the evening of June 25. An apparently inebriated Schiro is said to have wobbled out of Casa de Cobre on Big Basin Way and made his way toward the parking lot, ignoring pleas from bystanders and restaurant employees to take a cab. Witnesses reported that he was speaking in an “extremely slow manner,” according to Sgt. Kurtis Stenderup, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
While an employee scurried to call him a cab, Schiro was reported to have slumped onto a parked car before continuing on and getting into his Escalade. On his way out of the parking lot, onlookers say Schiro rammed into a white Ford Explorer and then continued driving to his home, where just after 6 p.m., deputies showed up at his front door.
When Schiro answered the door, deputies say, he was barely able to maintain his balance, and they asked him to step outside and confronted him about his wrought-iron gate, which had been run over with his license plate still entangled in it, and about the two flat tires and damage to his SUV. Slurring his words and with his eyes bloodshot and watery, Schiro turned and pointed inside his house and said his girlfriend had been the one driving. When deputies told him he’d been spotted by several witnesses, Schiro changed his tune.
“Damn it, you got me,” he told deputies, and admitted that he’d been drinking and was not supposed to be driving, according to Stenderup. But, he said, they were wasting their time because he’d never been arrested before, to which deputies reminded him about his probation and prior convictions.
After failing to complete field sobriety tests and being positively identified by a witness, Schiro was taken to the county jail in San Jose.
NELSON IN AUDIENCE
He was arraigned on the new charges across the street at the Hall of Justice on July 8. In the audience sat 29-year-old Ashley Nelson, who said when she found out about the June 25 incident, she “froze and went into instant panic mode.”
“It kind of brought me back to after he hit me,” she said. “It brought up all those emotions again of just an arrogant man who can’t admit to himself that he has a problem.”
Nelson, a competitive cyclist prior to the hit-and-run five years ago, now lives with permanent brain damage, palsy to the left side of her body and significant damage to her vision. As Nelson put it, “I’m a different person.”
Nelson said she agreed to an out-of-court settlement with Schiro because she had two young children at the time and she was anxious to put the incident behind her. All she wants now, she said, is for Schiro to serve the remaining 18 months of his prison term.
Nelson said she attended the hearing not because she has a personal vendetta against Schiro, but because she felt it was important to be there to ensure that the likes of people like Schiro are held accountable for their actions. His case highlights a larger problem, she said.
“I’m more angry now at the court system and the fact that the judge said [to Schiro] in 2012 at the sentencing, ‘You have a lifetime ban on driving,’ but nobody ever did the paperwork. Nobody ever told the DMV he has a lifetime revoked license,” said Nelson. “If that had happened he would have been in more trouble and off the streets now.”
One concerned Los Gatos cyclist made up posters that he put up in bicycle and coffee shops following that hit-and-run five years ago that left Nelson seriously injured, asking for help in identifying the driver.
In response to Schiro’s latest incident, the cyclist said, “I don’t see any possible explanation for how he got out after 18 months. It staggers the imagination.
“He doesn’t belong in society,” he added. “Obviously, the law needs to be changed.”
As of July 14, Schiro remained behind bars, awaiting a July 31 hearing regarding the new charges. It’s only a matter of time before he’s released, and when that happens even the law enforcement community is unsure about how to keep him off the streets.
DIFFICULT SITUATION
Aside from taking proactive measures to prevent drunken driving, there is not much authorities can do to deter serial DUI offenders like Schiro from driving drunk again, said Stenderup. Doing any more would not be a feasible or practical use of taxpayers’ money, he said.
“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do that’s going to prevent this person from driving,” he said. “We can’t babysit him all day long.”
Stenderup said the sheriff’s office spends thousands of dollars every year combating impaired driving through avenues such as DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols during every major holiday and using social media to remind residents about the dangers of drinking and driving. Over a span of the three-day Fourth of July weekend, for example, deputies made about 45 DUI arrests in the county, according to a preliminary count. In comparison, 95 people were arrested over a four-day period last year.
In the end, the onus is on the individual to look after him or herself, Stenderup said. Lack of information and communication within law enforcement isn’t so much the problem as much as enforcement due to limited resources, he said. Law enforcement officers must constantly evaluate which types of calls to prioritize.
The community also plays a role in deterring people from climbing behind the wheel drunk, Stenderup said. Because law enforcement officers cannot stop motorists at random, they rely on the community to inform them whenever they encounter an intoxicated driver.
“It’s a partnership,” Stenderup said. “We want to always say we rely on the community to help us do our job.”
Based on the many phone calls that were made to authorities about Schiro on June 25, it appears that people in Saratoga tend to look out for each other. The owner and general manager of a restaurant that Schiro often frequented before his arrest in 2009 recalled a day when Schiro sauntered in “bouncing off the walls” before parking himself at the bar.
REFUSING SERVICE
“We didn’t serve him,” the restaurant owner said. “We actually offered him a ride. He didn’t take it.”
He said Schiro hasn’t shown up since, and even if he did he wouldn’t be allowed to come in. The same goes for anyone else that walks in intoxicated. It’s better to face the ire of a patron than risk losing a $30,000 liquor license, he said.
What’s more, the restaurant owner said he trains his employees–both the wait staff and bartenders–to monitor patrons’ alcohol intake and how to recognize the signs of intoxication. His employees will usually offer to call a cab or give a drunk patron coffee, water or food. In a small community like Saratoga, it’s not uncommon for employees to drive people home.
“If I know you, I’m going to take your keys away,” he said. “I’m not going to let you drive home.”
Mike, a waiter at the Saratoga restaurant and bartender at Louisiana Bistro in San Jose, recalled a time when a patron at a bar in Texas he worked at threatened to kill him if he didn’t continue pouring. He chose not to cave in.
“Sometimes they get upset, but it’s not worth it to keep serving somebody and get your liquor license revoked,” he said.
Of the roughly 45,000 criminal cases that the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes every year, on average about 7,000 are DUI-related, according to assistant district attorney James Gibbons-Shapiro. In California, DUIs are treated as a misdemeanor until the fourth offense or when a DUI results in a significant injury or fatality.
REPEAT OFFENDERS
The first offense typically carries a minimum 48-hour jail sentence in addition to fees and fines totaling $850 and in tandem with community service and a DMV class where offenders hear firsthand accounts from the families of those impacted by DUI drivers.
The second conviction comes with a minimum 10-day jail sentence, $2,300 in fines and fees, longer offender programs and a requirement to install an ignition interlock device that prevents a car from starting if alcohol is detected on a driver’s breath.
The third DUI carries a minimum 120-day sentence and $2,600, and the fourth comes with a minimum 10-year prison sentence.
The second through fourth offenses are based on aggravating factors, such as whether a collision was involved, whether the offender was licensed and how close in time the DUI offense was to the previous conviction.
Prosecutors will be considering all of the aggravating factors in Schiro’s case before making a recommendation to the court, Gibbons-Shapiro said.
“The fact he was told never to drive again, was out of prison, was in a hit-and-run associated with a collision and didn’t have a driver’s license are going to be a big part of our thinking when we do get to a point of recommending a sentence to the court,” he said.
Schiro faces a maximum sentence of two years if convicted of the new charges, with the exception of the probation violation which is a separate case.
Gibbons-Shapiro said he believes programs such as the victim impact panels offered through the DMV are effective in preventing repeat DUI offenses. He commended juries in the county for taking DUI cases seriously as well as efforts made by groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
“I think that there’s been a huge cultural shift in America about driving under the influence,” Gibbons-Shapiro said. “The way the DUI laws work has been a big part of that and advocacy groups like MADD have been a huge part of that. We take these cases very seriously from a law enforcement standpoint.”
Serial DUI offenders difficult to monitor and keep off the road
