Real Housewives of Potomac star Karen Huger’s DUI conviction has led to a two-year jail sentence—the strictest possible punishment for the crime.
The 61-year-old has flirted with the limits of driving under the influence for years now and arrived to court on Wednesday with her husband Ray after her latest incident in March of last year when she crashed her Maserati in Maryland.
The Bravo star’s attorneys had requested a six-month jail sentence but with four DUI charges stacked against her, the judge enforced the highest possible sentence instead. The Maryland Circuit Court Judge Terrance J. McGann told Huger during her sentencing that she was “filled to the gills with alcohol,” Fox 5 reported.
The verdict comes despite Huger’s lawyers trying to bargain her case to McGann, citing that the Bravo star who has been a fixture in all nine seasons of the reality TV show, was grieving the death of her parents and struggling with antidepressants.
“Ms. Huger’s mother died on Thanksgiving morning in 2017 of kidney failure and sepsis. Her father died seven months later on June 28, 2018 from the complications of Alzheimer’s and ‘of a broken heart,” Huger’s lawyers said in a motion. “Those two losses, in quick succession, were for Ms. Huger, personally devastating and, in her opinion, may have been the straws that broke her back, arguably leading to several errors in judgment that led to her arrest in this case.”
But that argument did not seem to help her case. Huger was found guilty of driving at a high speed which led her to crash into a median and two signs. After the verdict, dash cam footage from the night of the incident was released, exposing the star’s incoherent speech.
Among the gibberish, Huger deemed herself “Thomas Jefferson’s concubine” and informed officers that she is “extremely intelligent.” Although she later chalked up the events of the night to her “super emotional state,” she was charged with a DUI and driving while intoxicated (DWI)
In 2016 Huger told the website Bossip that she had been arrested in 2006 for drunk driving.
“I [got] pulled over,' she told the outlet at the time. ‘Technically I wasn’t driving, I was pulled over into a parked area where you should not park. I turned off the car and I called my husband. However, the teddy bear cops found me first, and I collected my DUI.”
At the time she plead guilty and got only probation.
Arrests are not at all rare in the Real Housewives universe. According to People, Huger joins a list of 14 other housewives who have been arrested over the years.
Other behind-bar alums are Jen Shah who was arrested in March 30, 2021 for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Leah McSweeney, who was arrested in an altercation outside the Hammerstein Ballroom in 2002, Gina Kirschenheiter, who was arrested for drunk driving in February 2019, Luann de Lesseps who was arrested in 2017 for attacking a police officer, and Kim Richards who was charged with public intoxication, trespassing, resisting an officer and battery in April 2015.
