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After crashing his $100,000 Porsche into a pole - and flunking a roadside sobriety test - actor Jason Priestly pleaded tearfully with police not to haul him off to jail on a DUI charge, sources reveal.
"I don't know why these things always happen to me," an eyewitness heard the former Beverly Hills, 90210 star blubber to cops.
"Do you really have to take me in? It was just an accident. Can't my lawyer take care of this?"
But the moaning didn't make a dent on the LAPD officers. They cuffed him, loaded him into a cruiser, and took him to the Hollywood station, where he was booked on suspicion of felony drunk driving. He was held overnight, then released on $50,000 bail.
Priestly wasn't hurt in the 12:15 a.m. smashup near his Hollywood Hills home. But his passenger, pal Chad Cook, 27, an aspiring actor, wound up in the hospital with a broken arm, Priestly's silver Porsche 911 was totaled and a parked car was also badly damaged.
Still, sources at the scene reveal the 30-year-old actor appeared worried only about himself.
"Jason seemed to think that because he was a Hollywood star, he was above the law," says witness Derin Thorpe, who lives nearby. "At first he acted like he didn't care about the accident and was just standing there smoking cigarettes and talking on his cell phone."
Although the speed limit is 25 mph, "from the wreckage of his car, it looked like he was going much faster," says Thorpe. "The tire marks he left on the road were about 250 ft. long and he hit the other car, a Buick, like a battering ram. There was broken glass and parts all over the place."
When asked by police to balance on one foot and perform other simple sobriety tests, Priestly snarled, "I know how to do it!" says another eyewitness.
"But his speech was slurred and he seemed very unsteady."
Sources say the actor told cops that he had swerved to avoid a wild deer in the road. "But deer or no deer," says the onlooker, "he seemed drunk. One cop at the scene told me, 'the guy was blazing.'"
Ironically, Priestly is a longtime NASCAR racing buff who was grand marshal of the MCI WorldCom 200 race in Phoenix, AZ. in March. And his 90210 character once wound up in the slammer after drinking and crashing his car!
Priestly's real-life bust on Dec. 3 occurred just two days after the problem-plagued star - who sources recently accused of abusing cocaine and booze - announced his split from his makeup artist wife Ashlee Peterson.
As GLOBE reported, Priestly told a pal: "I may have made a big mistake getting married."
Now, solo again, Priestly brushes off the DUI charge.
He admits that cops tested his blood for alcohol, but says, " They do that to everybody, especially if you're a celebrity in this town."
Chris Doherty
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