Schools

Jason Kidd To Give Mea Culpa Drunken Driving Talk Friday

Nets basketball coach will speak to Southampton High School students.

As part of the plea agreement that Jason Kidd swooped up this summer, he will go before impressionable local students on Friday to talk about the error of his ways. 

Kidd, a retired NBA player who is going into his first coaching season with the Brooklyn Nets, has admitted to driving drunk in Water Mill in July 2012.

Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, confirmed that Kidd will speak to the students on Friday, about a mile away from where he crashed his Cadillac Escalade after a tequila-fueled night.

The media is not going to be given access to the talk, school.  "At one of our early planning meetings, the group (J Kidd Team, school districts, EAC, DA Office, and others) jointly agreed that this event would be for students and staff only," Southampton High School Principal Brian Zahn said in an email on Thursday night. The DA's office said the decision was entirely the school's. 

The talk will be videotaped and distributed to schools throughout the county.

Kidd was on his way home to his house in Water Mill when he went through a stop sign and into the woods, taking down a utility pole and some trees. Southampton Town police charged him with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor.

Though his attorney vowed he would fight the charge, exactly one year later Kidd pleaded guilty as charged under a plea bargain. He received interim probation, which mandated two speaking engagements at Southampton High School and Longwood High School in Middle Island. 

But, the plea is only temporary. If he successfully completes the terms, his record will reflect a lesser conviction of driving while ability impaired, a violation. 

Spota acknowledged that the average driver charged with misdemeanor DWI usually receives three years of probation. However, he said after the court proceeding in July, "He wasn't let off the hook." Few drivers are subjected to the national embarrassment Kidd has faced, he said. 

"Because of his accomplishments as a professional athlete and his status today as the head coach of the Nets, Mr. Kidd, we believe, is the perfect person to reinforce the important message that we've been getting to across every day of the week and that is: Don't drink and drive at the same time," Spota said.

At the time, Spota said he expected Kidd to talk to the students about "taking the responsibility for conduct, such as he did today, being a person of honor and integrity and admitting you were wrong, as he did today."

Kidd's Sag Harbor attorney, Edward Burke Jr., said at the time, "We are in a position today to take advantage of a situation, and turn a bad situation much better."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here