With 22 DUI convictions, William "Willie" H. Roberts expects to pick up
right where he left off when he gets out of jail.
"If you want to say that drinking every day is an alcoholic, then maybe I
am," he said. "But I have enough knowledge not to drink and drive. A couple
of times I've driven drunk, but I don't drink to the point where I'm loaded
and don't know what I'm doing."
"I can quit beer if I want," the former Streamwood resident told the Daily
Herald in an interview at the Kenosha County Jail in Wisconsin where he
notched his latest DUI.
The former carpenter and decorated Vietnam War veteran holds the distinction
in Illinois of having more drunken driving convictions - 17 - than any other
driver in the state, according to Illinois secretary of state records. He
has another five in Wisconsin.
The talkative 54-year-old, who hasn't had a legal license for years,
chuckles when asked what would keep him from driving.
"Furnish me a chauffeur," he said with a smile.
Roberts acknowledges his drinking has caused him trouble, but, "If we look
at it another way, have I hurt anybody?"
He does not recall ever hitting anyone while driving drunk and court records
do not indicate any such incidents either.
Told he holds the most DUI convictions in Illinois, Roberts doesn't bat an
eye.
"I had a lot more (drunken driving arrests than records show) but the judges
would throw them out because the cops would arrest me and say I was drunk
when I was just sleeping in my car (after drinking)," he said.
"If I feel I'm going to have an accident or drive off the road, I'll pull
off and go to sleep. I'm a defensive driver."
Roberts blames most of his arrests and convictions on a variety of
conspiracies between police and residents who have turned him in, as well as
ineffective legal help and vindictive judges.
He's also got an answer to what started him drinking in the first place: a
marriage that went sour.
All of Roberts' recorded DUI convictions in northern Illinois occurred in a
seven-year span; from 1983 to 1990. In 1990, he moved permanently to
Wisconsin, where he had lived and worked off-and-on over the years.
Roberts' record is a perfect example of how difficult it is for government
to stop repeat drunken drivers.
Beginning with simple fines in the early 1980s on up to an ignition lock and
lengthy prison sentences, judges, prosecutors, police, probation officers
and Roberts' own lawyers have been frustrated at every turn in their efforts
to stop him from getting behind the wheel.
Courts have tried to put him into treatment many times but even the
treatment centers have been at a loss when it came to Roberts.
In June 1986, after yet another drunken driving conviction in Illinois,
Roberts was evaluated by a treatment center in Chicago for admission to
its program.
The case worker wrote in a court record that Roberts wasn't acceptable for
the program because he "does not appear ready to make a commitment to
change," despite being an alcoholic.
Thirteen years later, not much had changed when Kenosha County Court Judge
Michael Fisher sentenced Roberts for his fourth drunken driving conviction.
"You obviously have got an alcohol problem," Fisher told Roberts, who had
pleaded guilty to drunken driving. "You have no driver's license. You
continue to drink. You continue to drive. You continue to violate the terms
of your bond. ... You just don't care. You won't listen to anybody."
Roberts traces his drinking problems back to his divorce after 16 years in
1978. Roberts said his ex-wife, whom he met while growing up on Chicago's
Northwest Side, refused to let him ever see his five children again.
After his divorce, Roberts lived until 1988 in the Streamwood home he and
his wife had owned together. He sold it just before being convicted for the
17th drunken driving charge in Illinois and moved permanently to Wisconsin
to live with his mother and stepfather in their small, cottage-sized home
on the banks of Paddock Lake, a small resort town near Kenosha.
He had two more drunken driving arrests in Wisconsin, but then, after 1994,
none until last year when he was arrested yet again.
His stepfather, Lawrence Lunkes, died shortly after, so his mother moved
back to Chicago. Roberts' older brother, Charles, took over the home that
William Roberts still lists as his permanent address.
After several more arrests for driving with a revoked license and his latest
drunken driving arrest in January 2000, Roberts will have to find another
place to stay when he gets out of prison, his brother says.
"He's not welcome here," Charles Roberts said.
Asked why his younger brother keeps getting in trouble, Charles bluntly
repeats what Judge Fisher concluded last year: He just doesn't care.
The rest of the family agrees, Charles Roberts said.
"We've all talked to him till we're blue in the face. We've all given up on
him," he said, as he sat on a riding mower at his home.
For now, William Roberts will be behind bars, not a steering wheel.
On June 30, 2000, Fisher sentenced Roberts to three years for his fifth
drunken driving conviction in Wisconsin, two years for driving with a
revoked license, and one year for violating his probation. The judge
ordered that all three sentences would be served consecutively, meaning,
that the total sentence is six years.
On top of that, Fisher revoked Roberts' probation on three prior cases and
sentenced him to two more years on those cases - making that sentence
consecutive to the new drunken driving case.
In all, Roberts now faces the longest prison sentence of his life - eight
years - and will have to serve at least 75 percent of that.
Since he was arrested in January, Roberts has been in jail and as a result
he said he hasn't had a single drink.
But even up to eight more years behind bars won't stop him from drinking.
"Eventually," he said, "I'll do that again too."
William H. Roberts