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Chronic drunk driver arrested again on DUI charge at Aspen airport

A Roaring Fork Valley man with at least six prior drunken-driving convictions was arrested again Monday at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport and charged with felony DUI, according to court records.

Harve Hoff, 64, had to be pulled out of the backseat of his vehicle in front of the airport arrivals door by two Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies and handcuffed after refusing to cooperate, according to a warrantless arrest affidavit filed in Pitkin County District Court.

Emergency dispatchers were first alerted to Hoff about 3:30 p.m. Monday after a caller reported that he smelled like alcohol and had a history of alcohol problems, the affidavit states. The person Hoff was supposed to pick up at the airport told an airport operations employee that she didn’t feel safe getting in the car with him.



The airport employee reported that Hoff was sitting in the front seat of a white Lexus with Texas license plates, though he had moved to the backseat by the time a deputy arrived. Hoff refused to follow directions from the deputy and repeatedly asked the person he was picking up to drive away, according to the affidavit.

Hoff was argumentative, would not get out the car, declined to speak with the deputy and had slurred, “thick-tongued” speech. He also refused to perform roadside sobriety tests and became more agitated when the deputy informed him that he was going to be arrested for drunken driving because witnesses had seen him behind the wheel.




After another deputy arrived and helped drag Hoff out of the car, they transported him to the Pitkin County Jail. In addition to the six DUI convictions, Hoff also was the subject of several protection orders filed against him that forbid him from consuming alcohol or controlled substances as well as a suspended license.

Hoff, part of a longtime Pitkin County family whose latest address on file was in Glenwood Springs, has been arrested 17 times in the past 10 years by the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office mostly for alcohol-related incidents, according to Sheriff’s Office records. He was charged Monday with felony DUI, driving with a suspended license, violating a protection order and violation of bail bonds conditions.

jauslander@aspentimes.com

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