Crime & Safety
Jason Kidd: 'I Had a Few Drinks'
Court documents quote the NBA star as admitting to drinking and driving after a car crash on Long island.
SOUTHAMPTON, NY—NBA star Jason Kidd admitted to drinking at a club before crashing his Cadillac Escalade early Sunday morning in Water Mill, NY, according to court documents released on Monday.
Kidd is a former basketball standout at UC Berkeley, and before that, at Alameda's St. Joseph Notre Dame High School.
Kidd — who had just signed with the New York Knicks three days earlier — refused to submit to either a blood or breath test to determine his blood alcohol content, court records show.
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According to a report that made to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the 39-year-old was at — where he was being treated for minor injuries sustained in the crash — when he refused the tests. Refusing a breath test in New York State results in an automatic driver's license suspension.
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He was also charged with running a stop sign before the crash, in which police said he struck a telephone pole and went into the woods near the intersection of Cobb Road and Little Cobb Road.
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According to court documents, after Kidd exited the Escalade he told a police officer, in substance, "I was the driver. I had a few drinks. I was going home from a club. I don't know what happened."
Photographs sent into TMZ suggest Kidd partied at the nightclub in East Hampton into the early hours on Sunday.
Earlier that night, Kidd tweeted a photo of himself with his wife, former model Porschla Coleman, and Star Wars director George Lucas, the honoree at "Fostering a Legacy," a benefit at a private estate in East Hampton for R&B singer Ne-Yo’s Compound Foundation, which tries to inspire kids in foster care and group homes.
Police said Kidd had the strong smell of alcohol on his breath after the crash shortly before 2 a.m. and was very unsteady on his feet with watery, glassy red eyes and slurred speech.
Kidd's attorney, Edward Burke Jr., of Sag Harbor, NY, did not immediately return a request for comment, but he told Patch on Sunday that he is awaiting "further discovery from the district attorney's office."
Court documents give two addresses for Kidd, one in Dallas, Texas, where he played for the Mavericks, and another for an estate on Flying Point Road in Water Mill, for which he reportedly paid $5.97 million last year.
This article was originally published on Southampton Patch.
