Wearing his trademark gold clock over his chest as he exited a courthouse, Flav (real name: William Drayton) acknowledged that he was under the influence of marijuana when he was pulled over by police last May. The Public Enemy frontman was given a 30-day suspended jail sentence and credit for two days served in the Clark County Detention Center. Flav was also fined $685 and will be required to attend drunken driving school and a victim injury panel as part of the plea deal, but will have misdemeanor speeding and open container charges dropped.
This marks his second plea deal within a month. On January 25, Flav pleaded no contest to having marijuana metabolite in his system during an incident last August in the nearby suburb of Henderson, where police found him asleep in the driver’s seat of his car parked on the side of a street. He also received the same fine and plea agreement in that case.
In the incident from last May, Flav was stopped by a Las Vegas highway patrolman after driving 73mph in a 45mph zone. He later failed field sobriety tests and the officer also found both marijuana and an open container in his vehicle. Flav was arrested on numerous charges including DUI, possession and driving with a suspended license. But two months later, the formal charges against him also revealed that he was under the influence of cocaine at the time.
Flav underwent numerous rehab stints in the ‘90s for substance abuse, including a $2,600-per-day crack cocaine addiction that lasted for six years. He acknowledges spending millions on drugs over the years.
“I don’t know how much that is but if you did the math, wow, I went through a lot of money,” he told Popeater in 2011. “If I did the math, I’d probably be shocked on how much money I spent, I’d probably punch myself in the face.”
The rapper maintained sobriety for several years, but appears to have fallen off the wagon more recently. During his January 2014 arrest for felony aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, police found a small amount of marijuana on him.