A 53-year-old Placentia man was sentenced to four years in state prison for his 9th DUI conviction since 2011 in Orange County, according to court records obtained Wednesday.
Derek Stacy Haskayne pleaded guilty Tuesday, June 20, to driving drunk and driving with a blood-alcohol level of .11 — over the legal limit of .08 — both felonies. He also admitted three misdemeanors for driving on a suspended license and without an ignition interlock device as required.
Haskayne accepted a plea deal from Orange County Superior Court Judge Roger Robbins, who also ordered the defendant to pay $15,272.54 in restitution. He was given credit for 286 days in jail.
Deputy District Attorney Christine Simmons objected to the plea deal.
Haskayne was arrested about 6 p.m. Jan. 29 after crashing his vehicle into a Southern California Edison electrical box in the 100 block of South Lakeview Avenue, according to Placentia police Sgt. Adam Gloe.
Because of the number of DUI convictions, the most recent case was filed as a felony.
When Haskayne pleaded guilty in one case on June 18, 2014, probation officials said it was his seventh DUI dating from March 2012 to October 2013. He was sentenced to two years in prison for that DUI, court records show.
Haskayne at that time told his probation officer that “his wife of over 20 years filed for a divorce and left him for her father’s best friend. This devastated him. Despite his business success of owning a large company with over 50 employees, he was unable to get over the family turmoil. He chose to try to constantly numb the effects via alcohol. He claimed he has never done drugs.”
Haskayne found himself in trouble with the law again on June 7, 2015, this time in Laguna Beach. He was lane straddling and failed to yield when police tried to pull him over, according to probation officials. He kept going for a half-mile at about 4 to 7 mph, according to a probation report, which said the vehicle “stopped for about two minutes, then began rolling again before driving onto a sidewalk and colliding with a cement light pole.”
Haskayne was “groggy” and slumped over the steering wheel when officers arrived at the scene. Police found a prescription bottle containing GHB, according to the probation report.
After he was released from prison in October 2014, Haskayne fell down the stairs at home and cut his face, according to his probation officer, who told him on Nov. 5, 2014, that he was not to drink alcohol or drive.
Haskayne said he paid a driver $50,000 annually to ferry him around, according to the probation report, which said he was in a rehab facility at the time and agreed to take Vivitrol, a drug to help with the physical aspects of alcohol dependency.
Haskayne had been testing clean, but the tests were not monitoring for GHB, the probation officer wrote.
“Despite any success the offender has demonstrated under supervision, he has shown by his recent arrest that he has substituted his alcohol addiction with another substance that is not detected by standard drug screening,” the probation officer wrote. “It is unknown if he had a relapse or has been going through the motions finding alternative methods to numb his pain, which he has been open about.”
Haskayne was sentenced to three years in prison for the June 2015 case and was given 280 days credit for time served before his guilty plea, according to court records.
