Cook County Judge Thomas V. Lyons ruled that Playboy's Miss May 2009 shouldn't have been arrested for a DUI (Sun-Times). Crystal McCahill was stopped by police on the Near North Side earlier this year after running a red light.
Prosecutors can still pursue their case against McCahill if they choose to appeal the judge's ruling but, as her Illinois DUI attorney Michael J. Monaco was quoted in the article, their case is "severely undermined."
Her admission of taking three shots of liquor before leaving the nightclub where she works, the smell of alcohol on her breath, her mumbling to the cop and her "red-bloodshot and glassy eyes"--not to mention the results of a breathalyzer test--are not in dispute.
So what swayed the judge, besides McCahill's considerable charm?
Despite the obvious powers of persuasion a Playboy model may have over a male judge, she's not necessarily getting any special favors. Details are scant, but Monaco disputed claims that McCahill voluntarily came down to the police station before a single sobriety test had been performed. She believed she was under arrest, her attorney said, which would have been improper in the absence of sufficient evidence.
It wasn't until she got to the station that the officer performed the field sobriety test and a breathalyzer test.
"If he'd done them on the scene and she'd failed them, it probably would have been a different result," Monaco said.
And that's the procedural hiccup at issue, although a Chicago Police spokesman told reporters that the officer acted appropriately and legally proved that she was indeed intoxicated. If it goes to trial (DUI cases rarely do), then we can assume she'll dress a little more conservatively than usual.
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