DUI suspect finds bribe won’t work

Published 10:39 pm Friday, November 23, 2007

EVERETT — An Everett man stopped for drunken driving earned himself a quick trip to jail when he offered a Washington State Patrol trooper money not to arrest him.

It’s the second time in his 15-year career that trooper Dave Clifton has been offered a bribe out on the road, he said.

“I get a lot of people begging and pleading me not to give them a ticket,” Clifton said. “I don’t get people offering me $500 to make it go away.”

Clifton is part of the State Patrol’s special drunken driving enforcement team.

The troopers work at night in Snohomish, Island, Skagit and Whatcom counties to remove impaired drivers. Since starting last year, the team has arrested nearly 1,000 drivers. In his career, Clifton has arrested more than 1,400 suspected drunken drivers.

“We take DUIs very seriously. I’m not letting anyone walk away,” Clifton said.

He was patrolling south Everett around midnight about a week ago when he spotted a car weaving in and out of traffic on Highway 99.

Clifton stopped the car. He heard the driver’s slurred words and noticed his bloodshot eyes. Two open beers were in plain sight. The man couldn’t walk a straight line, nor finish the rest of the field sobriety test.

Clifton told the man he was under arrest for drunken driving.

As he was being handcuffed, the man turned his head, looked the trooper in the eye and asked if $300 would be enough to “make this go away,” the trooper said.

“Sir, don’t go down that road. You have the right to remain silent and I suggest your exercise that right,” Clifton remembers telling the man.

The warning didn’t stick.

The man offered Clifton $500 to let him walk free. He was 10 blocks from home. “He said it with such confidence like he knew it would work,” Clifton said. “I think he was kind of surprised I continued to handcuff him.”

It was crystal clear the man was offering a bribe to a police officer, Clifton said. The trooper had no choice but to book the driver into jail for investigation of bribery, a felony crime, he said.

The man has a prior drunken driving conviction and has been arrested a dozen times, Clifton said.

“He pushed the situation. Enough was enough,” Clifton said. “No amount of money was going to change my answer.”

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.