A Villager with a history of DUI arrests was jailed Sunday night after he was found passed out in the driver’s seat of a golf cart parked outside the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center.
A Lake County sheriff’s deputy approached 61-year-old Roland Edward Richardson and smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage. The deputy noted that Richardson’s speech was slurred and his eyes were bloodshot, watery and glassy.
Richardson told the deputy he was “just sitting” in the golf cart and that someone else had driven him there. He said he was sleeping and had no intention of driving. While the two were speaking, the deputy noticed an empty bottle of vodka sitting in the small open compartment on the passenger side of the golf cart, a sheriff’s office report states, adding that Richardson admitted to drinking approximately two pints of vodka throughout the day.
The deputy invited Richardson, who lives at 2121 Estevez Dr. in Villa Vera Cruz in the Village of Santo Domingo, to participate in field sobriety exercises and he said he “just wanted to walk home and forget any of this ever happened.” The deputy explained the consequences of refusing to participate in the field sobriety exercises and Richardson again stated that he wanted to go home before eventually agreeing to participate.
The deputy then determined that Richardson was impaired, so he was taken into custody. On the way to the Lake County Jail, Richardson complained of a medical issues and a Lake EMS unit was called. The EMS crew cleared Richardson of any medical problems and he was booked into the jail early Monday morning, the report says.
A criminal background check showed that Richardson had been convicted of four DUIs and his license had been permanently revoked. At the jail, he refused to provide breath samples to determine his blood alcohol content, the report says.
Richardson was charged with DUI (fifth offense) and driving while license suspended with knowledge (DUI). He was being held on $20,000 bond and is due in court on Oct. 21 at 8 a.m. to answer to the charges.
Richardson is no stranger to the legal system, having been arrested twice before in The Villages. In March 2018, a woman fled to the safety of the Winn-Dixie on Bichara Boulevard to call 911 after he invaded her golf cart.
In June 2016, Richardson was sentenced to 21 months in state prison after being arrested earlier in the year for driving drunk in a golf cart. In that February 2016 incident that involved an accident, Richardson boasted to a Sumter County sheriff’s deputy that he was as Special Forces Green Beret before failing field sobriety exercises and providing breath tests that showed .248 and .240 blood alcohol content.
