Charles Barkley's Blood Alcohol Level Nearly Extreme at .149; Leaving Post at TNT

Charles Barkley's mugshot met the definition of "shitfaced," and so did his blood alcohol level on the night he got caught for driving drunk in Scottsdale. The former Suns b-ball player's blood registered .149 on the alcohol dial, say reports, just barely missing the state's .15 threshold for "extreme DUI" penalties. A conviction on...

By Ray Stern

January 9, 2009

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Charles Barkley's mugshot met the definition of "shitfaced," and so did his blood alcohol level on the night he got caught for driving drunk in Scottsdale.

The former Suns b-ball player's blood registered .149 on the alcohol dial, say reports, just barely missing the state's .15 threshold for "extreme DUI" penalties. A conviction on a regular DUI charge still means a day in jail and a mandatory installation of a breath-test device in his vehicle.

Barkley is scheduled to appear in Scottsdale city court on February 6 at 2:30 p.m. before Judge James Black.

In other Barkley news today:

*The entertainment site tmz.com posted an audio file of Barkley's bust by Scottsdale PD. The one thing that's not on the tape, though: The reported bragging by Barkley about how he was hurrying to get a blow job from some unidentified tramp.

*USA Today reports that Barkley is taking a leave of absence from his job at TNT as sports pundit.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.