An SF Lyft driver with twice the legal BAC limit hit a motorcycle, got into a physical fight with people in front of the Roxie Theater, and tried to drive away. Today he was found guilty on these charges.
It was a hell of a night in front of the Roxie Theater this past September. Just after 5 pm (on a Wednesday, mind you), a silver Lexus SUV knocked over a motorcycle and tried to drive away. Passersby mobbed his car and demanded he stop, at which point he got out of the car to argue with them.
It got worse. The altercation turned physical, leading the passersby to deduce that the Lyft driver was quite drunk. He tried to get back in his car and drive away, but one of the passersby took his keys, which he’d left in the ignition, because he seemed so drunk. And then an alcohol bottle fell out of his car.
When police arrived, they observed that because of the motorcycle collision, the left side of the driver’s Lexus “had extensive damage that made it so that the door had difficulty closing,” in the words of the SF District Attorney’s Office.
The District Attorney’ Office was involved because they prosecuted the driver, 44-year-old Fernando Capeletti, for driving drunk. And today, the DA’s office announced that jury had convicted Capeletti of driving under the influence of alcohol, and driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or greater.
In fact, Cappelletti blew a 0.20% and a 0.19% Blood Alcohol Content when tested nearby at the Mission District SFPD Station. The legal limit in California is .08%.
“This office takes drinking and driving seriously and will do everything possible to keep the streets of San Francisco safe,” assistant DA Donovan Campos-Coolbaugh said in a Thursday press release from DA Brooke Jenkins’s Office. “It is unacceptable that a Lyft driver, responsible for transporting members of the San Francisco community, was driving under the influence of alcohol with a Blood Alcohol Level over 2.5 times the legal limit. Thank you to the jury for enforcing the law and your service in this trial.”
Cappelletti’s sentencing date has not been announced, but it’s fair to assume he is no longer driving for Lyft.
Related: Two Oakland PD Officers Arrested for Driving Under the Influence — While on Duty [SFist]
Image: Google Street View
