SANTA FE, N.M. — A man convicted of drunken driving 21 times has been sent to prison for 3 1/2 years, his fourth jail term within the past decade.
Joe L. Rael, 46, was sentenced Monday on guilty pleas to drunken driving, driving on a suspended or revoked license and using a forged driver's license.
"You can drink yourself to death if that's what you want to do," Judge Michael Vigil told him. "But why do you insist on driving and risking the lives of others?"
Rael's driving privileges were suspended in 1997 for 10 years, but he obtained a license under the name of a brother who died in 1981.
Police said Rael's blood-alcohol level when he was arrested last October was 0.26 percent — more than three times the legal limit.
Rael's son, Joe Rael Jr., 26, was arrested on New Year's Day on drunken-driving charges for the ninth time. The younger Rael was on probation from another conviction at the time of his arrest.
The state Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that the habitual offender law does not apply to drunken driving.