A serial drunk driving offender pleaded guilty to a single charge of drunk driving fourth offense on Dec. 4, with a sentence set at six months.
In the plea agreement, Jeffrey Dupree, 42, of Española, admitted that he has been convicted five previous times of drunk driving, the last time in 2023, and that he won’t be allowed to drink during his five-year term of supervised probation.
Prosecutors dismissed an additional drunk driving charge against him, for an incident a few months after the one he pleaded guilty to, and have not refiled the charges in that case.
Among the other conditions of his plea are that he has to get an ignition interlock device for any vehicle he drives. The device forces someone to blow into a tube to check for alcohol and won’t allow the vehicle to start if it detects alcohol.
He will spend six months at Santa Fe Recovery, an in-patient treatment center, according to the plea deal. He received credit for 139 days spent in jail, leaving his time spent on house arrest, after his release from the in-patient treatment program, at one month and 11 days, according to the judgment and sentence.
In the case that was bound over to district court, Dupree was initially charged with aggravated fleeing an officer, DWI fourth offense and driving on a license revoked for DWI for an April 28 incident where he passed a car in a no-passing zone on U.S. Highway 84/285. New Mexico State Police Officer Oshane Greene tried to pull him over as he went through Española. Dupree ran through a signal and went down to North Railroad Avenue, before pulling over in the 200 block, Greene wrote in a statement of probable cause.
Dupree allegedly told Greene that he drank a few pints of whiskey before driving and blew a 0.15 and 0.16 when his blood-alcohol level was tested, Greene wrote. The presumed legal limit is 0.08. Dupree waived a preliminary hearing in the case.
Two months later, in June, Dupree was charged with residential burglary, assault with intent to commit a violent felony and criminal damage to property under $1,000. That case was dismissed without prejudice in September.
Dupree was charged on Sept. 10 with DWI seventh offense for allegedly driving while intoxicated in Española. That case was dismissed on Nov. 20.
Dupree was charged on Sept. 12 with criminal damage to property over $1,000. Prosecutors dismissed the charge later that same month. In that case, he allegedly threatened to kill people and broke windows by throwing rocks through them.
No new cases have been filed against Dupree since the Sept. 12 incident and charges have not been refiled in any of the cases. None of the other cases are part of the plea deal.