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Supermodel Stephanie Seymour In Court To Face DUI Charges, Wants To Enter First-Time Offender Program [Video]

By Maat van Uitert
Published on: 02:44 PST, Feb 4, 2016

Supermodel Stephanie Seymour hopes to enter a first-time offender accelerated alcohol treatment program in response to DUI charges. On January 15, Seymour was driving her Land Rover when she inexplicably backed into a Mercedes Benz while trying to back her vehicle off an I-95 on-ramp.

Stephanie Seymour is married to billionaire real estate developer Peter Brant and was a highly sought-after supermodel in the late 80s and early 90s. She also dated Axl Rose and was the star of the video for the iconic power ballad “November Rain.”

During the incident, the vehicle Stephanie was driving rolled onto its side. When asked by police officers to take a field sobriety test, Seymour refused. DIU charges were levied against the model. Nobody was hurt in the incident, but the officers who responded noted Seymour smelled like alcohol.

On the scene, according to police documents, authorities asked Stephanie for her identification, and “[a]fter six or seven requests for her license, registration and insurance,” Stephanie was finally “able to fumble through her purse” to find her drivers license. Everything did not go smoothly then, however, since Stephanie not only handed over her Connecticut driver’s license but also “a credit card.”

In addition to the DIU charges, Seymour also faces other charges after authorities determined her Land Rover struck a telephone pole in Greenwich before the incident involving the other driver. At the time of the accident, investigators noted there was front-end damage to the vehicle that did not coincide with the damage from the accident involving the Mercedez Benz.

Investigators were able to connect the car Seymour was driving to a mangled utility pole in the Greenwich, Connecticut area. In addition to the DUI charges, Stephanie faces several additional charges under Connecticut law for evading responsibility as well as failure to drive in a proper lane, reports People magazine.

On Tuesday, in a Stamford, Connecticut, courtroom, lawyers for Stephanie Seymour said the former model wanted to enter an alcohol diversion program for the drunk driving charges and an accelerated rehabilitation program for the second set of charges, since Seymour is a first time offender, reports the New York Daily News. Although Stephanie herself refused to comment, her attorney, Phillip Russell, noted Seymour wanted to enter an “accelerated alcohol education program” that is usually available to first-time offenders.

Noting that he does not believe Stephanie has a drinking problem, the lawyer said that this case “is an ordinary first-offender drunk driving case.” In his experience, first-time offenders, like Stephanie Seymour, “do not drive drunk again” after taking part in the alcohol diversion program.

During her court appearance, Stephanie testified after being placed under oath and, according to the Hartford Courant, answered questions that Judge Auden Grogins asked her, including whether she had any prior criminal or serious motor vehicle convictions.

Adding that “Ms. Seymour has been appropriate throughout this whole process and is behaving like a first offender,” a judge is expected to sign off on the agreement when Stephanie returns to court on April 4. If Stephanie successfully completes both the alcohol diversion program and the accelerated rehabilitation program, then charges against her will be dismissed.

Noting that although “Ms. Seymour had a career in fashion,” the mother of three is “just like 3,500 other motorists in Connecticut who have made a similar error” in this situation.

Stephanie Seymour’s attorney added that Seymour is “not looking for any special treatment or preferential treatment of any kind,” explaining that the former model “just wants to get this through and get it behind her.”

[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]

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